


So Much Tangled Thread

by imogenbynight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (the past relationships are all referenced briefly but without a lot of detail), Alternate Universe, Angst, Author is a card-carrying member of team everyone switches forever, Castiel's strict religious upbringing, Closeted Castiel, Explicit Sexual Content, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death(s), Openly Bisexual Dean, Panic Attacks, Past Castiel/Daphne, Past Dean/Victor, Past one-sided Castiel/Balthazar, Pilot!Castiel, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Homophobia, Soldier!Dean, Some scenes take place during WWII, Tailor!Dean, Time Travel, past Dean/Lisa - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-22 14:33:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9611678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imogenbynight/pseuds/imogenbynight
Summary: In 2008, Dean takes over his late grandfather’s tailor shop in Normal, Illinois, and discovers an old leather flight jacket in the attic. A hand-painted set of wings on the back, the name Novak, and a three-quarters sewn circle of red cotton are the only clues he has to the jacket’s origins, and he enlists his historian brother to help him find the owner.It doesn’t take long for Sam to trace the jacket to Lieutenant Castiel Novak–a pilot who lived in Dean’s apartment until his mysterious disappearance a few years after WWII–and what little information they find about him is fascinating. The guy was a stone cold badass. A stone cold fox, too, if the grainy old newspaper photo is anything to go by.It’s to be expected that Dean idly wishes he could have known the man as he closes the annoyingly unfinished circle of thread on the jacket.Less expected, however, is that wish coming true.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Chris, who doesn't even go here (thanks, man, even though you're not reading this)
> 
> The gorgeous art attached was created by the wildly talented [Sketchydean](http://sketchydean.tumblr.com)! Please go reblog her [masterpost](http://sketchydean.tumblr.com/post/157125920856/for-this-years-deancaspinefest-i-had-the) and let her know how amazing she is!
> 
> Edit: Many thanks to [length-of-rope](http://length-of-rope.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, who helped out with the few instances of Polish! I really appreciate the assistance :)

 

 

> _And there went out another horse that was red:_  
>  _and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth,_  
>  _and that they should kill one another:_  
>  _and there was given unto him a great sword_  
>  **\- King James Bible, 1611**

* * *

Twenty-five thousand feet above Kampinos Forest, Lieutenant Castiel Novak sees nothing but a sea of gray. Smoke obscures the treetops. If he’s very lucky, that same smoke will obscure the sight of his plane from the ground.

 _Angel Eyes_ is one of a hundred and eight Boeing B-17’s flying into Warsaw, protected by a handful of Mustang fighters as they deliver supplies to the city. It’s a risky mission--they’re flying over occupied territory in broad daylight, for one thing--but the situation in the Polish capital is dire, and the knowledge that things will only get worse without their help makes it a little easier to push through the ever-present fear and get the job done.

There are ten of them on board; Castiel, his co-pilot Daniel Fisher, their navigator Rufus Turner, bombardier Alfie Johnson, radio operator Chuck Shurley, flight engineer and top turret gunner Gabriel Sugarman, ball turret gunner Frank Devereux, waist gunners Andy Gallagher and Theo Pike, and tail gunner Bartholomew Messinger.

All but Johnson, Devereux and Turner have been together since they left US soil. For a year, these men have been Castiel’s only companions. He thinks of them as brothers.

It’s a nice thought, or it would be under different circumstances.

Their cargo hold is stacked high with rations and medical supplies, and the plan is to sweep in, make the drop, and be well on their way back to the Allied base in London before the occupying forces have a chance to do a damned thing about it. The general consensus for the likelihood of things actually going that way seems to be _fat chance_ , but they’re getting close to the drop zone now and somehow haven’t been fired upon once. It’s only serving to make things more tense.

There’s a kind of murky, anxious energy in the air, and with every jolt of turbulence, Castiel feels himself flinch. He gets like this, sometimes. When it’s been too long since they engaged the enemy, though it’s not that he actually _wants_ to be caught in the middle of another dogfight.

It’s more like the kind of dreadful anticipation that comes when watching someone overfill a balloon. Every moment that it doesn’t burst means the moment when it will is just a little bit closer. Any second, any second, any second-- _**boom**_.

With the steady roar of the engines filling his head, Castiel pushes the anxious feeling down. He chances another glance at the endless smoke below, and finds himself remembering the fire-and-brimstone scripture of his childhood. The Book of Revelation, he recalls, spoke of War riding a red horse. After spending the past year in the thick of it, Castiel has added this idea to the list of things his family’s church got terribly wrong.

Because as Castiel sees it, War does not ride a red horse, but a gray one.

It is bleak and crushing, a fog that won't stop rolling in. Like the ash that is left behind after another town is razed. Like the skin of those lost; faded and dull.

Red might be the color of blood and fire, but both mean life as much as anything else. Red is flushed cheeks. Flowers in window-boxes. Wine and song and sunsets. Red is everything that war is not.

No, he thinks as he steadies his gaze on their lead plane and presses the button on his interphone. Red is far too great a color for War.

“How long to the drop zone, Turner?”

“Half an hour, give or take,” the navigator replies, his voice tinny and distant despite him sitting barely twelve feet away.

No sooner than the words have left his mouth there’s the high-pitched whine of an approaching rocket, and Gabriel’s voice comes through the interphone with something that sounds a lot like _those bastards_ , and the Mustang Castiel had been tailing is knocked clean out of the sky in a burst of flame.

The B-17 above it is hit by shrapnel, and though the whole thing lurches with the impact, it keeps on keeping on.

There’s a reason these planes get called flying fortresses.

Despite the sudden ambush, there’s little Castiel can do but keep going. He grips the yoke tightly as his men scramble to locate the source of the rocket, and Andy manages to fire in the right direction twice before Angel Eyes is hit square in the nose by a cannon shell.

The impact knocks them off course, but they pull back quickly, and when Castiel asks if anyone is hurt he gets eight replies in the negative. The ninth never comes.

The static on the interphone is broken by another burst of gunfire.

“Johnson?” Castiel asks, voice wary. Thirty tense seconds pass before Turner manages to crawl over to Johnson’s turret, and then his voice is crackling in Castiel’s ear.

“He’s hit,” Turner gasps. “Shit, he’s bleeding bad. Plexiglas shattered.”

Castiel’s stomach lurches. He tastes bile. Johnson is only nineteen years old. Castiel is just barely twenty-five himself, and it’s at times like this that he remembers it.

He swallows against the sick feeling in his throat. He has no time for his own encroaching panic. His men need him.

“Can you stop it?” he asks.

“It’s bad,” Turner says again. “I don’t know if I can--”

“Get him out of the turret, then return to your station,” Castiel instructs him firmly. “Chuck--”

“I’m on it,” Shurley says, voice determined and ready to help the young bombardier as soon as Turner gets him out of his turret.

“Andy, Theo, keep your--”

Castiel’s jaw shuts with a clack when they’re grazed by another shell, and ahead, three B-17’s are hit, one after the other in rapid succession. Two of them drop right out of the sky, and the other lists slowly to the side, trailing smoke.

Castiel sends up a silent prayer for the safety of its crew. Angel Eyes’ own right side is struck again by another cannon shell before he’s even reached _amen_.

This time, an engine is lost along with a decent chunk of fuselage.

The plane lurches violently as Castiel struggles to keep it airborne. He can’t hear a damned thing over the roar of wind undercut by the insistent crack of cannon fire, but he can sense his men scrambling away from the hole in the fuselage. He pulls hard on the yoke as the plane dips lower.

It’s no use.

The damage is too much to fight against, and the plane tilts dangerously despite his and Daniel’s best efforts. Another strike to the underside cuts off the gunfire that Devereux had been responsible for, and the impact sends Shurley and Johnson tumbling from the plane before anyone can react.

Castiel feels like he might vomit. They’re losing altitude, fast, and their chances of getting out of range of the enemy and landing before they crash into the dense forest are slim to none. _Time to decide_ , he thinks, and takes a deep breath. It’s a no-brainer, in the end.

“Chutes ready,” he shouts over the interphone. “We’re bailing out!”

Daniel is shouting something at him as he struggles with the harness on his flak suit, but the interphone is a mess of garbled static, and the sound of rushing wind and the roar of the single remaining engine as it works overtime drowns out whatever it is he’s saying.

Castiel can’t tell if his head is spinning from panic or a lack of clean air, though something tells him it’s likely both.

He waits for the rest of the crew to jump first, helps Gabriel to fasten his chute when the gunner can’t get the connector to stick. Gabriel winks at Castiel before he jumps, his expression as cocky as ever despite the fear in his eyes. A pain in the ass to the very end, is Gabriel. Castiel hopes desperately that he’ll get to see his face again, if only so he can slap it.

Smoke and freezing air billow in the cargo hold, and Daniel pats Castiel twice on the cheek, wild-eyed, before he leaps out into open air.

Castiel follows him moments later, watching for the chutes of his men below him. He doesn’t see a single one. He hopes it’s just because of the smoke.

He counts down as he falls, gropes around his chest with awkward fingers for his ripcord and yanks at it as soon as he gets to zero. His whole body jerks painfully when the chute opens, his teeth clicking hard together with the abrupt change in speed. The taste of blood fills his mouth, hot and tinny and vile how it mixes with the sour taste of fear that hasn’t faded.

He’s still falling when he hears the **thud** -crash- _roar_ of Angel Eyes slamming into the earth below.

For a moment, time feels suspended, and then he feels heat roll over him as a fireball lights up the rapidly approaching treetops.

One second, the trees seem miles away. The next he’s hitting them. Hard.

The branches scrape his skin, gouge into his cheek as his chute tangles itself in the trees. He aches all over. His face stings. He looks at his blood where it’s smeared on the damp leaves and heaves in a breath, wiping at his face with a gloved hand.

Pain has never felt so good. So grounding. It’s proof that he’s still alive. Proof that he made it.

He only hopes that his crew were so lucky.

For a long, trembling moment, he grips the rain-damp bough nearest to him and listens for voices while he catches his breath. There’s nothing beyond the drip of old rain, and the shift of leaves in the breeze, and further off, the persistent pop of gunfire. Every now and then, he hears the crash of another plane being hit. He tries not to wonder if it’s one of theirs.

He pulls his first glove off with his teeth, then the other, and jams them into the breast pocket of his flight jacket before using his pocketknife to cut himself free of the parachute lines wrapped around his torso. Once he’s free he climbs carefully down to the ground. His crew would laugh at him, he thinks, for how careful he’s being.

As he sees it, though, he’s just survived falling from the sky: it would be a waste of his good fortune if he were to go and break his neck leaping from the tree that caught him.

When he reaches the ground, he finds it thick with fallen leaves and pine-needles. He breathes in deeply as he pulls off his now-useless parachute harness.

The air is sweet with decay and rainwater.

It’s cool among the trees, foggy and dark, and the only light he sees comes from a fire to the north. His plane. From here he can see what’s left of her nose--the painted angel missing most of her face and the curling script below cutting off halfway through.

Walking toward the wreckage would be incredibly foolish, but he still takes a few steps that way before he stops. They’d been flying south-east and his men jumped before he did. If he’s to find any of them, it will be north-west of here. He starts walking and finds Daniel almost forty minutes later, hanging from his parachute lines in a huge pine.

His neck is tangled in the cord, his hands limp and dark with blood at his sides, and when Castiel gets close enough he can make out scratches on his neck where he must have been trying to break himself free. In the dirt below Daniel’s feet, his gloves lay beside his pocketknife, useless and bloody where he must have dropped it in his desperation to free himself.

Castiel can’t hold back. He retches into the leaves, slumped onto the ground on his hands and knees, and wheezes in the cold once his stomach is empty and his throat is raw with the acidic burn of vomit.

Since they’d shipped out, Castiel had opened up to very few of his fellow troops, but Daniel had been good. Kind. A man who simply wanted to help, to be done with this godawful war so he could return home to his twin sister, Adina. When Daniel had learned of some of Castiel’s less commonly accepted qualities, he had promised not to breathe a word. Just clapped him on the shoulder and smiled with warmth.

Now, he is gone.

The tree has no low branches for Castiel to climb, no way for him to reach his friend and cut him down. He can’t even get his tags to return to Adina. He’s not even sure of where she lives.

“I’m so sorry, Daniel,” he says aloud, and the forest swallows his words.

Without any other option, he leaves Daniel and makes his way through the trees. He doesn’t find any of the others. Sees no sign of another soul beyond a few stray boot prints that look too old to be of any use, and a dark smear of long-since dried blood on the trunk of a white birch.

The late afternoon sun turns the sky pink and gold, making the forest far more beautiful than it has any business being on such a day, and he trudges onward as the mud grows thicker. Turns to sticky sludge that slows him down and pulls at his feet. He wants to lie down and let it claim him. He keeps on walking.

It’s getting dark when the trees begin to thin out, and through them Castiel sees a village. He stops at the edge of the tree line to survey it.

A low stone wall shows signs of previous attack where it’s crumbled in on itself. The charcoal remains of a few buildings stand like skeletons to the right. At first glance, he thinks the town has been deserted, but there’s a thin curl of smoke rising from one cottage’s chimney, and he crouches down behind a fallen oak to wait. To watch and see if anyone emerges.

He’s still watching when he hears a twig snap behind him, and with nothing but his pocket knife to protect himself he jerks upright, ready to confront whoever is there.

A dozen or so feet from him stands a thin man with watery gray eyes. He must be in his fifties, and is not dressed in military uniform, but he carries a rifle over his shoulder, and he eyes Castiel’s coat. Castiel stands a little straighter. Grips his knife, just in case.

“You are American?” the man asks, his Polish accent distinct and thick. When Castiel nods the man’s posture relaxes a little. Castiel finds himself doing the same. “You are hurt.”

Looking down at himself, Castiel sees no sign of injury, but when he glances up at the man he finds him gesturing toward his cheek. A touch brings away a bright smear of blood. He’d forgotten. Now, having had attention drawn to it, the torn skin stings and burns.

“My plane was--” Castiel starts, but has to stop. Has to swallow back bile at the memory of plummeting, of finding Daniel. The man seems to understand, though. He shifts the firewood in his arms to pat once on his own chest.

“Bartłomiej,” the man says, and looks at Castiel in question.

“Bah-tlo-mee,” Castiel repeats carefully, and when the man nods Castiel gestures to himself. “Castiel.”

Without another word, the man steps forward to pass half the wood over for him to carry, and heads toward the house Castiel had been watching.

“You will follow,” Bartłomiej says over his shoulder, and Castiel does.

The house is warm inside, and the shock of it makes his hands tingle.

In a doorway leading into a tiny kitchen, a woman whom he guesses is Bartłomiej’s wife stands tense and uneasy, a slight girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen hiding just behind her. The girl eyes Castiel warily through dark, heavy bangs.

“[Kto to jest](.)?” the woman asks, eyes wide as she looks from the man to Castiel and back again, and Castiel tries to look as nonthreatening as possible.

“[Amerykański żołnierz. Jego samolot został zestrzelony.](.)”

The woman relaxes a little and looks at Castiel.

“[Ma na imię Castiel](.),” Bartłomiej says, looking back at Castiel as if to check that he got the name right. It comes out more like _Cah-steel_ , but it’s close enough. Castiel nods. Bartłomiej gives a small smile, gesturing for Castiel to come into the room properly.

He does, holding out his hand for the woman to shake.

“Lieutenant Castiel Novak,” he says, and tries for a smile. “Call me Cas.”

“Cas,” she repeats, squeezing his hand briefly before letting go. “Agata is my name.”

“Thank you for allowing me into your home,” he says, though he wonders if any of them speak enough English for the phrase to mean much.

“[Zobacz jaki ma podarty płaszcz](.),” Agata says to Bartłomiej, and they both look at Castiel for a long moment before she holds out her hands.

“Your, [ęh... _wihajster_...](.)” Bartłomiej clicks his fingers as he tries to think of the word, and gestures at Castiel’s flight jacket. “Your coat. Agata will fix.”

Looking down, Castiel notices the tear in the fabric for the first time.

“Very good sewing,” Agata says, patting her own chest and nodding enthusiastically. “Please.”

“Thank you,” Castiel says, shrugging out of it and handing it over. Their daughter stares at him as he sits down in the wooden chair Bartłomiej points him toward, and keeps staring as he’s given a cloth and a bowl of water to wash the blood from his face and the dirt from his hands. He smiles at her again when his face is clean, and she sends a timid smile back. Bartłomiej laughs.

“[Chodź się przywitać, aniolku](.),” he tells her, and she tugs at her hair, looking down at the floor. Bartłomiej looks back at Castiel. “Hannah is very shy.”

“[Tato, przestań](.)!” she exclaims, blushing deeply. Castiel’s Polish might be rudimentary at best, but he knows an embarrassed kid when he sees one.

“My sister was much the same,” Castiel says, and Agata emerges from the other room, holding out a long strand of red cotton.

“Tie,” she says, and gestures until Castiel dutifully takes it from her, tying a knot in one end. She takes it back and sits down opposite him, carefully threading the thread through the eye of her needle.

“Have you had much trouble here?” Castiel asks, dipping his head in gratitude as Bartłomiej trades the bowl of dirty water for a mug of hot tea.

As he drinks the tea slowly, watching Agata repair the hole in his jacket, Bartłomiej tells him how the main village of Sieraków to the north was attacked, and how their home and the few around it were targeted shortly after. He describes the days before Warsaw was captured. How the Axis forces had made their way through the forests nearby.

“We live through this. Lose great friend, family. We will not lose our home,” Bartłomiej says firmly.

“[Co to](.)?” Hannah asks, finally finding her voice as she touches a fingertip to a pin on the collar of Castiel’s jacket.

“That,” Castiel says, “is a bluebird.”

Hannah tilts her head to get a closer look.

“I’ll tell you what,” Castiel says, pulling the coat closer and working the pin free. “I’ll make you a gift of it.”

He holds it out. Hannah stares up at him with wide eyes, and glances toward her father.

“A gift?” she repeats.

“Please,” Castiel smiles, pushing it toward her. “Your family has been very kind to me.”

She only takes it after Bartłomiej nods at her with a smile.

Castiel sleeps on the floor that night, draped in a loveworn quilt, and in the morning before he leaves, Agata hands him his jacket.

The tear on the front is sewn up flawlessly, but on the breast around his name, three-quarters of a circle has been stitched in red. A short length of thread hangs from the end. He touches it with his thumb.

“A blessing, to find [miłośc](.),” Agata says, pressing her hand over Castiel’s heart, and looks to her husband for help with the corresponding word in English.

“Your sweetheart,” Bartłomiej tells him, and Agata smiles as she explains that she has sewn good luck into his coat. If he is lonesome, she tells him, he needs only complete the circle to find his way back to his sweetheart.

She looks at him with such warmth that he doesn’t have the heart to tell her he doesn’t have one, and likely never will.

“That’s a lovely thought,” he says instead, and she beams.

“When you need each other, this will be your way home.”

Over the days that follow, his fingertips are drawn to that loose thread over and over as he trudges through the forest.

It’s a full two days before he finds another Allied soldier, and a week later he’s up in the air again, flying a new plane into gray cloud.

The war goes on.


	2. Chapter 2

First established in 1863 when Normal, Illinois, was still North Bloomington on the map, Needle and Thread began it’s life as North Street Finery. The pride and joy of siblings Harvey and Harriet Winchester, a tailor and a dressmaker respectively, the shop sat on a busy corner opposite a general store and a tavern. Harvey’s son took over in 1885, and for over a century the shop was run and owned by the Winchester family.

The sartorial bug skipped a generation when it reached John, who traded needle and thread for a socket wrench and a stint in the Marines, but his father Henry had no plans to retire for a long time, and he wished his son well in the field he’d chosen, happy to continue running the shop with his wife for years to come.

In the late 1980’s, Henry’s two young grandsons spent a week getting under his feet while their parents were away on a much-needed vacation. For those seven days, while Sammy sprawled in his playpen smashing lincoln logs together and not building much of anything, seven-year-old Dean followed his grandparents around the little shop, learning everything he could.

He watched clouds of steam rising from the heavy iron in the back room and ran his fingertips over the thin, vellumy paper on which his grandmother’s dress patterns were created. Under Grandma Millie’s watchful eye, Dean sorted countless spools of colored thread, and when nobody was looking he dug through a seemingly bottomless drawer of loose buttons and pricked himself on more than one stray, silvery pin.

In tiny increments, Dean fell in love with the place. The smell of warm cotton, the feeling of soft velvet, the rhythmic hum of the sewing machine; all fast became synonymous with happiness in his young mind.

By the end of the week, Grandpa Henry was letting him mark the fabric with chalk, and though he was not allowed to use the big, heavy scissors, he could watch from close by as they chomped along the lines he’d drawn. When customers came back to try on their freshly tailored suits and flowing dresses, they’d smile and turn on the spot to look in the mirror, and on their way out they’d ruffle his hair and tell him what a clever boy he was. They were always so happy when they left.

Dean loved being a part of that, even if his role was a small one.

But the vacation was over too soon. Dean and Sam went home to Kansas with their parents, and before he knew it, Dean was fifteen and working after school at his father’s auto shop.

It wasn’t a hardship, exactly.

He loved the process of taking an engine apart and putting it back together. He loved cars, period. But the memory of that short week in his youth stayed in the back of his mind, and all through his shifts at Winchester Auto, Dean daydreamed about the little shop in Normal.

From time to time, Henry would ask him about coming to work as an apprentice once he’d finished school, and Dean wanted desperately to say yes. But John Winchester already had the and Son tacked on to the end of his business name. Despite his family heritage, John had a lot of traditionalist ideas about what constituted a man’s profession. Those ideas only seemed to intensify after Dean unceremoniously--and entirely on accident--stumbled out of the closet at age sixteen. From that point onward, Dean’s fear of disappointing his father overshadowed everything.

He went back to Normal during the summer break before eleventh grade, ostensibly to repair some damage that Grandpa Henry’s car had sustained in a minor accident, and stayed for three weeks, this time learning the tricks of the trade that he’d been too young to grasp before. When a bridal party arrived with requests for several original dresses, Grandma Millie encouraged him to try his hand at design, and was thrilled when she called him a week later to announce that his third attempt was being made for the Maid of Honor.

When Grandma Millie passed away suddenly a few months later, she left Dean her dress form.

Dean didn’t doubt that his father would have objected to him keeping it had Grandma Millie not been in the ground. Dean used it as little more than a coat rack for the rest of his years in his parent’s home.

He’d wished, on occasion, that his grandparents or his mom would break the promises they’d made to him and tell John that Dean’s true interest lay in tailoring, but they never did. Each of them kept their word, and Dean’s secret, as though it were sacred.

Still, they encouraged him to speak to John himself. It wasn’t until his high school guidance counsellor pointed out that when it came to his future the only person Dean should care about disappointing was himself, that Dean finally decided to follow his own path.

With his mother’s encouragement, he applied to a community college just outside Normal that offered a course in fashion design and tailoring, and was accepted.

Telling his dad about his plan was the only remaining hurdle. But before he could, near the end of Dean’s senior year, John’s heart gave out. Fresh out of school, Dean found himself signing up for the military in a misguided attempt at making his dead father proud.

He shipped out to Iraq, and two tours of hell later he arrived back on his mother’s doorstep, freshly discharged and completely at a loss for what to do next.

Mary hadn’t known what to do with him. Sam alternately looked at him with pride and pity, and Dean couldn’t decide which felt worse. He could never think of anything to say, and though he and his brother had always been close before, the constant threat of a conversation shifting into awkward silence was too much. Dean avoided the conversation in the first place unless he had a topic prepared.

Nothing seemed to fit anymore. All his friends from before--people he’d grown up with, spent countless afternoons and weekends with from his childhood up until the year he left--all seemed out of reach. The auto shop, long-since taken over by his dad’s old friend Bobby who owned the adjoining salvage yard, was too full of clanking machinery and the smell of gasoline.

It only took a few minutes in the garage for Dean’s mouth to run dry at the visceral memory of an IED ripping through his convoy on his last deployment before he came home. His head started spinning, and it wasn’t until he felt Bobby’s hands on his face that he realized he was sitting on the ground.

The panic attack hadn’t lasted all that long, but it was enough to have him packing a bag.

He’d been halfway to Illinois when Mary got the call from Grandpa Henry’s doctor. It had been eight years since Dean had seen him in person. He barely recognized the old man who gave him a tired smile from his hospital bed.

They’d spoken a little while before Mary and Sam had arrived. Henry told him about a man he’d known who had that same haunted look about him after World War II, and how he’d refused to talk about it. How everyone had refused to talk about it, back then.

Dean wasn’t sure how to tell him that people aren’t that much better now, so he didn’t. He just nodded and held his weathered hand and told his grandfather that he’d do his best. It’s all he could do.

When Henry passed away shortly after, Dean found himself the sole beneficiary of Needle and Thread and the small apartment above it.

It made sense to move in. To start over in a place where nobody knew him, where he wouldn’t get concerned glances from every second person in the neighborhood. A place where he wouldn’t feel like a specimen on display.

Mary had been reluctant to see him go, worried that he was running away to avoid dealing with the scars he’d been left with. It had taken him joining a few local clubs--a D&D group and a fantasy football league, specifically--in advance to get her off his back about it, and in the end she and Sam had driven down with him to help clear out the apartment. It hadn’t been occupied in years. His grandparents used to rent it out, but for at least a decade it had been little more than a storage space for the shop downstairs.

The few articles of furniture that had been left to gather dust were cleaned up and sold or given away, and the three of them spent the weekend painting the walls and unloading the U-Haul they’d driven up from Lawrence.

Now, it’s quarter past eight on a Monday morning. Three months since he moved in. Four months since Henry died. Seven months since Dean returned to US soil.

Though he’s got a client coming in at nine, he’s still laying in bed, staring at a long crack in the ceiling. There’s a few of them around the place, he’s noticed. A gap between the bathtub and the wall. A wonky section of hardwood at the top of the stairs.

He wonders if it’s worth getting someone to come check the building’s foundations. The attic, too. He’s pretty sure there’s a hole by the window up there. He rubs at his eyes with a sigh. He’s been putting off going into the attic since he moved in, but there are dozens of storage boxes up there, and it needs to be done.

His alarm chirps, shrill and insistent as it informs him that it’s now eight thirty. Only one client today, he reassures himself as he forces himself to get out of bed. One client, then lunch, then clear a box from the attic. One box at a time.

***

The client has come and gone by just after ten o’clock, and Dean spends the morning making countless adjustments to the man’s suit and dress shirt. He won’t be back until Thursday to collect them, but once Dean gets into a rhythm it’s easy enough to finish the job.

Despite a couple of interruptions--a walk-in client who needs an urgent repair on a ripped seam, another client who collects a dress he made for her and requests a second one in a different color, and a call from a regular client turned friend who’ll be coming by the following day with a costuming project for him--he’s finished with the suit by mid-afternoon.

He irons out the creases and hangs each piece in a Needle and Thread garment bag, ready to go, before tidying the space and flipping the sign on the door to closed.

The attic awaits.

He heads upstairs to his kitchen first, digging out some leftover pizza, and eats the slice cold as he makes his way to the hallway. The attic ladder squeaks as he pulls it down. He bats away dust before climbing up.

The attic is slightly less cluttered than he remembered, but it’s still daunting. There’s a hazy mirror leaning against the wall by the tiny window, a couple of lamps, Henry’s old green toolbox, and an ancient, wonky armchair that he doubts would be able to support the weight of a housecat, let alone a person. The mirror is probably worth keeping. He wonders how difficult it would be to shift the chair out to the curb for collection, and decides to leave that for his future self to worry about.

Start small, he thinks. One box.

He suspects that most of them are full of his grandmother’s unfinished dresses, but there are a few boxes marked trinkets, and a couple more labeled as forgotten repairs--coats and suits and shortened slacks that were never collected by their owners, eventually moved into storage with a plan to donate them to a shelter that never came to fruition.

To save himself from choosing, he pulls up the box closest to him, and sits down on the floor to dig through it, sorting the contents into trash and donations, with one significantly smaller pile he’s calling finders keepers.

Like sewing, the act of sorting the clothes and junk becomes easier the longer he does it, and after he finishes with the first box, he pulls the next one forward. One box at a time.

He gets through ten boxes like that, and is ready to head downstairs to wash the musty attic smell from his hands when he notices an old trunk against the wall, visible now that he’s moved so many boxes.

It’s scuffed along the bottom, the metal latch rusted shut.

Grunting with effort, he drags it out into a patch of slanted afternoon sunlight in front of the mirror and uses Henry’s screwdriver to pry the latch. It opens with a groan, and Dean’s mouth falls open when he looks inside.

“Wow,” he breathes.

Sitting on top of a collection of vintage records that would have been an exciting enough find alone is an old military flight jacket. The tag stitched into the lining at the collar identifies it as property of the US Army Air Force, and Dean tests the worn brown leather before he picks it up carefully, wary of damaging such a well-kept piece. The leather is a little stiff at the cuffs and collar, but soft otherwise. Dean turns it over in his hands to find a hand-painted pair of wings spanning the entire back. Angel Eyes is written in curling script underneath them, and Dean traces over the faded letters with his fingertips.

Flipping it back around, he finds a name printed onto the left breast above the pocket, and around it is an unfinished circle of deep red embroidery cotton, thick stitches curving two thirds of the way around.

”Nice jacket, Novak,” he says.

One end of the thread has been left untied. In the back of Dean’s mind, he can almost hear Grandpa Henry huffing at the sight of it. He hated loose threads. Dean can relate.

For now, he leaves the thread alone and looks for any other distinguishing marks. Besides a faint stain in the lining that looks to be blood and a small tear in the right cuff, it’s in almost perfect condition. There’s a row of what looks like seventeen flies drawn around the inside collar, and a single tiny puncture hole in the front, and Dean sets the jacket aside to dig through the trunk in the hope that whatever pin had been there might simply have fallen off.

He comes up empty, but really can’t find it in himself to mind.

Hefting the jacket up, he stands, dusts himself off, and heads downstairs. He’s been looking for an excuse to call his brother, and this fits the ticket exactly.

***

Sam’s been a high school history teacher for six months, but right now Dean thinks he sounds like a giddy teenager himself.

“Seriously?” Sam asks for the second time, and Dean can hear the face-splitting grin in his voice. It’s impossible not to match it. “It’s got the tag and everything?”

“Yep. Looks legit.”

“Can you send me a photo?”

“Already did. Check your email.”

There’s a few hollow clicks as Sam pulls up his inbox, and then a low, “That’s so cool.”

“Thought you’d appreciate it,” Dean says.

“I definitely appreciate it. Don’t think I’ve seen this design before, either. Eileen’s gonna flip.”

“Eileen?”

“Oh, um. She’s a World War II historian at the museum,” Sam says. “So what are you gonna do with the jacket?”

The fast subject change is a little too evasive for Dean’s liking, but he’s too focused on the jacket to latch on right now. He saves the topic for later.

“You think you’d be able to track down records to find out who Novak was? He’s probably got grandkids, and y’know… if this was Henry’s, I know I’d want to have it around.”

Sam hums to himself, thoughtful.

“I mean, it’s not a lot to go on,” Sam admits. “But if I can find a plane with nose art that matches the back, I should be able to pull up crew records to track down a Novak.”

“You haven’t seen this design before, though,” Dean says, disappointed, and Sam hums again.

“I don’t think so. But see the bees around the collar?”

“I thought they were flies.”

“There’s seventeen of them,” Sam says. It takes Dean a moment to catch on.

“You think this guy flew a B-17?”

“Seems more likely than having a swarm of flies on his jacket,” Sam snarks. “Listen, I’ve gotta finish grading these papers, but I’ll make a couple of calls tonight, see if there’s any records I can access through the museum.”

Dean can hear that grin again, and guesses that “the museum” is code for Eileen.

“Well, tell the museum thanks if she knows anything,” Dean says.

“Shut up.”

When they end the call a few minutes later, Dean folds the jacket in half and drapes it over the empty side of his bed before heading for the shower.

___

Dean’s in the bathroom, toothbrush hanging from his mouth as he digs through the medicine cabinet in search of a fresh bar of soap, when he hears his cellphone ding. It’s pretty late for most people he knows on a Monday, so with a frown he finishes up and makes his way out across the entryway into his bedroom.

There’s another chime just as he reaches it. Two messages.

From: Sam 11:13pm Dude I found him!

From: Sam 11:14pm Are you still up?

Dean tries to call him back, only to have the call denied right before another message comes through.

From: Sam 11:14pm Get on Skype so I can show you.

Dean loathes Skype with every fibre of his being, but he’s keen to see what Sam found. He grabs the jacket and heads back out into the kitchen, where he pulls out a chair at the table. Booting his laptop, he waiting a painful amount of time for the program to load.

When Sam finally appears onscreen, he’s fuzzy and glitching.

“How is this easier than just talking on the phone?” Dean asks in place of a greeting, and Sam rolls his eyes so emphatically that Dean can see it despite the dismal image quality.

“I’m sending you a few files,” he says, ignoring Dean’s question.

Clicking on them only makes the video lag more, and while they load Dean watches his brother talk out of sync with the audio.

“So, I was right about him flying a B-17. His name was Lieutenant Castiel Novak, and Angel Eyes was one of the B-17’s involved in the Warsaw Airlift. It was one of three that went down.”

Dean makes an impressed sound.

“I’m guessing he survived.”

Sam nods.

“Along with two other guys--uh, a flight officer, Rufus Turner, and a turret gunner, Gabriel Sugarman. Turner got picked up pretty quick, but he had a shattered hip from the impact, so he was discharged pretty much right away. He was still around until about a year ago. Lived in Omaha. Sugarman was captured, but somehow convinced the enemy that he was one of their spies, and fed them all bullshit while collecting intel for our guys before he eventually got away. His book is one of the files I sent you.”

“And Novak?”

“He came out of the forest after a couple of days, barely a scratch on him, and about a week later he was flying another B-17 that had lost its pilot.”

“Did he make it back stateside?”

“Yep,” Sam says, lips popping on the P as he leans back in his office chair and crosses his arms. He’s got the same look on his face that he had when he was thirteen and had dirt on Dean that he was waiting for a chance to spill.

Dean narrows his eyes.

“What?”

“He lived in Normal,” Sam says.

Dean shrugs. It’s not surprising, considering his jacket ended up here.

“He lived in Normal above a tailor shop,” Sam amends.

“He lived here?”

“Until 1948,” Sam says. “Then he up and left. He didn’t really have anyone in the town, so it wasn’t until his landlord--that’s our great-Grandpa, by the way--went to see why he hadn’t paid his rent that they knew he’d gone.”

“And after that?”

“No idea. Can’t find any record of him getting married or having kids in any state. There was an engagement notice from before he shipped out, and one of the other files I sent is a letter he wrote to the woman he was engaged to, but the letter, uh… well I don’t think they were still planning to get married.”

“Why not?”

“I mean, the letter didn’t say it outright, but Castiel spends half a page telling Daphne about how he met Clark Gable at an air base, and that he thought he was as, uh…” Sam pauses to remember the phrasing. “‘As breathtaking as you find your dear Dorothy, so I’m pretty sure they were both gay.”

“So much for tracking down grandkids, then,” Dean says.

“Yeah, but seriously--you’ve gotta read this stuff I’m sending you. The guy was cool as hell.”

“By your standards or mine?” Dean asks with a grin, and Sam flips him off before yawning.

“I’d better go get some sleep,” he says.

“Thanks for digging all this up, man.”

“I had help.”

“Yeah, I bet you did,” Dean grins and wriggles his brow. “You tell Eileen I said thanks next time you see her.”

Once Sam logs off, Dean glances at the time and figures he can afford to stay up another half hour or so without making himself too tired for his eight o’clock alarm.

There are six files in the folder that Sam sent. He skips the book for now, and looks at the pictures first. One is a pair of newspaper articles from the Normal Inquirer, dated about a week apart and scanned side by side. The earliest announces WAR HERO MISSING in heavy print, and includes a grainy photograph of Novak in a white collared shirt, arms crossed over his chest as he frowns at the camera. He’s got dark, unkempt hair, and the set of his jaw puts Dean in mind of a young Marlon Brando. Basically, he’s gorgeous, and Dean can’t help but feel a little cheated by the universe at the knowledge that he’s sixty years too late to check him out in person.

He studies the photograph for a long moment before turning his attention to the article.

WAR HERO MISSING

NORMAL, ILLINOIS Police are on the hunt for Lieutenant Castiel James Novak, who was reported missing by his landlord, George Winchester, this Tuesday. Novak was last seen on Saturday afternoon by Winchester’s son Henry, who works in his father’s tailor shop beneath the war hero’s apartment.

“He seemed a bit glum, but he was never a particularly cheerful fellow, so I’m afraid I didn’t think on it too much,” Winchester reported.

Police have expressed interest in speaking with a second serviceman, who was seen in Novak’s company a few days before his disappearance. The fellow was described as being in his twenties, fair haired, and tall.

A barman at a public house in Normal reported that the pair were in low spirits when they came in, but “they’d been in together twice before, and seemed deep in conversation on both occasions.”

Lieutenant Novak was awarded a Medal of Honor and a Distinguished Flying Cross for his service as a pilot.

The second article is much shorter--barely a paragraph--and has no adjoining picture.

SEARCH FOR MISSING LIEUTENANT CALLED OFF

NORMAL, ILLINOIS The hunt for missing Lieutenant Castiel Novak has been called off today, after a number of drafted letters were discovered in his home. The letters, when shown to Novak’s uncle (who wished to remain unnamed), were confirmed to be in his handwriting, and the contents in line with his character. Police declined to comment publicly on the specifics, instead stating that the contents of the letters were sufficient proof that Novak had willingly moved out of state with a fellow returned serviceman identified only as D.

Novak’s uncle was unavailable for comment.

The next two files are both black and white photos of Angel Eyes, one from each side. The first just shows curling script like that on the back of the flight jacket Dean’s still holding on his lap, and the second shows a dark-haired pin-up girl, angelic wings sprouting from her shoulders as she raises her fists and glares as if to say, bring it, you bastards.

Next is the letter to Daphne Allen, and as Dean reads it he wonders how Sam could say that it was only implied that Castiel was interested in men. It’s all there in the first lines, obvious as a punch in the face.

Forgive my unsteady hand in this note, but I just met a creature so striking that I scarcely believed he existed outside the cinema screen until he addressed me by name. I never thought myself capable of swooning--and yet!

“Yeah, this shit’s real subtle, Sam,” Dean snorts to himself. He figures it’s a symptom of straight guy bias, and decides to just be impressed that his brother managed to avoid assuming that Castiel simply wanted to play a rousing game of baseball with the old movie star turned air force major.

He finishes the letter, and rubs at his stinging eyes. It’s nearing half-past twelve, and the remaining two files are a five page account of the actions that resulted in Castiel being awarded his Medal of Honor and Distinguished Flying Cross, and the book written by the gunner on Castiel’s first B-17.

Dean fools himself into believing that he’ll be able to stop reading after a few minutes. He’s still awake at half-past five in the morning.

____

When Dean’s alarm blares at eight o’clock, his eyelids feel like sandpaper. It’s tempting to call Charlie and ask her to reschedule, but the costumes she’s coming to organize will likely keep him busy for the next week, and as soon as he’s done with those he’s got three different bridal parties scheduled to come in.

With slitted eyes, he makes his way out into the kitchen and gropes around in the cupboard for his favorite mug before realizing it’s sitting where he left it on the dish rack. He fills it and trudges downstairs.

Sitting on a tall stool behind the counter, his coffee mug empty at his elbow and the dress he should be working on untouched in the studio behind him, he stares into nothing until a set of blue-nailed fingers wriggle in front of his face. He blinks, dazed, and his eyes come back into focus on the familiar woman before him.

“Ground control to Major Tom,” Charlie jokes, though she looks a little worried. “You were really zoned out there.”

“I think I fell asleep,” Dean admits.

“Your eyes were open.”

“Only on the outside,” he says, and scrunches up his face when she looks at him like he’s crazy. “That made more sense before I said it. What’s all this?”

He gestures toward the mass of maroon fabric in Charlie’s arms, and her expression brightens as she dumps the lot on the counter, narrowly missing his empty mug.

“Technically, it’s a curtain. For now.”

“I’m not making you a dress out of a curtain,” Dean tells her flatly. “It’s too thick. The drape will be all wrong.”

“I don’t need a dress,” she says, then shakes her head. “Well, I do. But I’ll trust you to choose the right stuff to make it out of. This is for Queenie.”

“...Gilda’s horse?”

“Yup.”

“Do I even want to know?”

“Three words, Dean: Moondoor. Royal. Wedding. It’s gonna be amazing.”

It’s getting close to closing time when Dean puts the finishing touches on the last prospective design for Charlie to take to her late night LARP planning session, and lets out another explosive yawn.

“Yikes,” Charlie says from where she’s sitting nearby, reading a comic. “Did you go out last night?”

“Hmm?” Looking up from his sketchbook, Dean blinks a few times before shaking his head. “No, I was home. I just... I was up all night reading.”

“Must’ve been a good book.”

“So far,” he agrees. “It’s actually-- y’know what, come upstairs for a minute. I’ll show you.”

“Ooh, intrigue,” she says, lifting her brow as she hops down from her stool.

Once they’re in his apartment, he grabs the jacket and holds it out for her. She looks it over and slips it on, the sleeves hanging down to the ends of her fingers.

“It’s cute, but I think it’s a little big for me.”

Rolling his eyes, Dean flips open his laptop and opens the pictures of the plane as he gives her the Cliff’s Notes condensed version of where the jacket came from, and the badass it belonged to.

“So what were all the records in the trunk?” she asks once he’s done, and Dean frowns.

“Huh. I dunno.”

“You don’t know?”

She sounds incredulous.

“Yeah, I guess it is weird I didn’t check those out.”

“Well, let’s go.”

Without waiting, Charlie goes to the landing and reaches up to pull on the cord. The ladder drops down swiftly. Dean follows her up, pointing out the trunk once he’s there. She sinks down in front of it, shrugging out of the jacket and handing it over to Dean, who folds it carefully in half before placing it on the armchair.

One by one, Charlie pulls out the records, looking them over.

“You know, it’s kinda stupid to look at these without listening to them,” Dean points out.

“So bring up the turntable,” she suggests.

He clicks his tongue twice before doing just that, setting it up against the wall and sliding one of the records from its sleeve. Something slips out and disappears under the armchair.

“Crap,” Dean mutters.

“I got it.”

While he sets the record onto the turntable, Charlie reaches under the chair and pulls out a photograph, dusting it off. Her eyes light up.

“Oh, wow, Dean-- check it out!”

Dean lowers the stylus, and Charlie Parker crackles through the attic as he makes his way over.

The photo is in near perfect condition, not a single crease in the paper, and from the surface Castiel Novak--dressed in the jacket that lays on the chair a few feet away--smiles out at them with his arm flung around a tall, fair-haired man in a matching jacket, both standing in front of the B-17. His hand is hanging down past the man’s shoulder, obscuring his name printed on the chest save for the first initial D. The lieutenant’s smile is radiant.

Dean thinks that this must be the man Castiel had been seen with before he disappeared; the one he’d written a letter to before he’d run away with him.

“You think there’s more pictures in the other records?” he wonders aloud, and Charlie goes back to the trunk, carefully sliding records from their sleeves to check.

“Nope,” she says finally, and stretches her arms over her head. “I guess I’d better get going. Gilda’s making cupcakes for the planning sesh tonight, and I wanna be there to lick the frosting off the spoon.”

Dean can’t help but snort.

“Is that what we’re calling it these days?”

Charlie kicks him in the shin before she leaves.

***

The attic is actually kind of nice, Dean decides, sitting back in the armchair that is apparently stronger than it looks. After Charlie left, he flicked through the albums again and settled on a Billie Holiday single that reminded him of his grandmother, and now he listens to her voice lilting, sad and sweet.

He looks at the photo again, and feels a pang of sympathy. He’s not certain, but it seems likely that Castiel and this mystery man had been in love with one another. It would explain the second article, with its terse phrasing and complete lack of detail on the content of Castiel’s farewell letter.

Things might not be amazing yet, but Dean can’t imagine having to up and leave town because of who he is.

He blinks and lowers the photo to the armrest as it occurs to him that essentially, that’s how he ended up here in Normal instead of staying in Lawrence. Maybe he had to leave because of how he couldn’t be the person his old friends saw him as, but that’s not so different to what Castiel and this man had to do.

With a sigh, he lifts the flight jacket onto his lap and looks it over again. It’s unlikely that he’ll ever track down someone related to Castiel, and though he’s sure the jacket would fetch an obscene amount of money were he to take it to an antiques dealer or an auction house, he can’t bear the thought of it ending up on display somewhere in a cold glass case. It’s stupid, but after spending his entire night reading about this man, he feels like selling the jacket would be a betrayal. He might not know Castiel, but he feels like he could have. Like if they were to have met, they would have been friends.

Idly, he wishes that could have been.

Running his fingers down the collar, he comes to the unfinished red circle on the breast and chews his lip. The long, loose thread tickles at his thumb.

If he’s going to keep the jacket, he’s going to have to fix that. It’ll drive him crazy if he leaves it alone.

He’s still wearing his pincushion wristband, and he works a needle free, pulling out the thin strand of black cotton still threaded through the eye and exchanging it for the red thread that hangs free.

Lover man, where can you be? Billie Holiday sings, and Dean completes the circle as her refrain fades out to nothing.

A draft shudders through the attic as he ties off the thread, setting the hairs on the back of his neck on end, and Dean slips the pin cushion from his wrist so he can try the jacket on.

The leather is warm and soft, and it fits Dean better than he expected. Standing, he moves to look in the mirror, only to find it isn’t where he thought it was. The corner where it stood beside the small window is completely empty, and he glances around to find the mirror standing on the other side of the attic.

He’s not sure why Charlie would have moved it, or when, but it’s entirely possible he didn’t notice, considering how tired he’s been all day. Hell, maybe he fell asleep.

It’s then that he hears music, filtering up through the attic floorboards.

He clambers down the ladder onto the landing at the top of the stairs, and when his feet hit the floor he looks down in confusion. Where there should be nothing but worn oak, there’s a floor runner with a pattern of blue and yellow flowers. The floorboards that peek out from beneath it are considerably less scuffed than they should be.

Glancing up and around, he notices that the light fixture is wrong, too.

There’s a black and white photo on the wall of a woman with light hair, holding a scruffy-looking Jack Russell Terrier as she beams in front of what Dean’s keen car senses tell him is a Lincoln Zephyr Coupe. A side table stands beneath the photograph, holding a vase of wilting lavender roses whose petals have fallen onto a stack of mail and the floor below.

The music is louder here, and Dean edges forward to peer into what should be his own open plan living room and kitchen, and though the layout is the same the furniture and wallpaper are not, and more importantly, there’s a man there. He’s turned away from Dean, and he’s dressed in tan pants, belted at the waist. His feet are bare, and the sleeves of his white t-shirt are rolled up a little, the outline of a zippo lighter visible under the edge of the sleeve on the right.

He’s about Dean’s height, and his dark hair looks damp where it meets his neck, curled slightly from a recent shower. Something is boiling on the stove. As Dean looks at him in confusion, the guy pulls open the pale green door of what looks like a mint condition vintage fridge and slaps a thin steak down into a waiting skillet. It sizzles.

The man is humming tunelessly as he cooks, and he nods to the music playing from a record player by the wall. Jazz. Sounds like Charlie Parker. Dean just listened to this song with Charlie.

This isn’t my apartment, Dean thinks, the realization hitting him far later than it probably should have, and he takes a step back out of view before the guy can see him, scrambling for the attic ladder in such a panic that he slips and kicks the side table, sending the pile of mail and the vase toppling onto the floor. Water splashes all over his leg and into his boot.

The sound of it is loud, and Dean swears under his breath as he drags himself up into the attic. He’s just pulled his feet up over the edge when the man reaches the landing.

“Hey!” he shouts, his voice deep and startled, and Dean feels himself slowly turning bright red before he’s even had to face him. This is awkward as hell.

“This is going to sound ridiculous,” Dean calls out, kneeling to lean over the edge as the top of the man’s head comes into view below the ladder, “but I think our attics are joined. I guess I went through the wrong hatch.”

The man is holding a spatula in his hand in a way that is probably intended to be far more threatening than it actually is. Dean leans down through the opening, holding out a hand.

“Not exactly the way I’d want to introduce myself to the neighbors, but uh…”

He trails off, throat going dry, because the man looking up at him is the spitting image of Castiel Novak. He blinks.

“You’re--”

“Who are you?” the man asks before Dean has a chance to say something incredibly stupid, and Dean shakes his head. The attics must be joined. Castiel was probably this guy’s grandpa, and here’s Dean rifling through his crap and breaking into his apartment.

“I’m Dean.”

“Why are you wearing my jacket?”

Dean raises his brow and looks down at the jacket in question.

“Oh, crap. Sorry man. Like I said, I didn’t realize I shared the attic with anyone. I thought this stuff was just left behind from the old tenants, and I’m kinda into the whole vintage thing. This thing’s awesome, by the way.”

The man just squints up at him, like he’s insane. Dean clears his throat and pushes to his feet.

“Sorry,” he says, sliding his arms out of the sleeves. “Do you want me to put it back in the trunk, or--”

Between one blink and the next, he’s somehow shifted across the room. With a shake of his head, he makes his way over to the ladder and looks down. The hardwood floor is empty. No carpet. No mystery neighbor. Just scuffed oak and the boots Dean kicked off beside the door two days ago.

Hanging over his arm, the folded jacket is heavy and warm.

Dean’s head spins, and his heart--just barely back to normal after his desperate scramble up the ladder--begins to race.


	3. Chapter 3

There are men, Castiel knows, who came back from the war with scars in their minds greater than those on their bodies. Standing in his empty attic, looking for the strange visitor who clambered up the ladder not thirty seconds ago only to vanish into thin air, it occurs to him for the first time that he might be one of them.

“Hello?” he calls out for the third time, but there’s no response. His voice is swallowed up by the empty room. He’s still clutching the spatula he’d been using when he heard the clatter on the landing, though how he’d intended to use it to protect himself he has no idea.

When he eventually makes his way back down to the landing, there’s a distinct boot print in the water that spilled from the vase that had been sitting on his side table. He wriggles his own bare toes against the floor runner and takes several deep breaths.

The smell of steak reaches his nose on the fifth inhale, and he curses as he hurries back into the kitchen to find his miserable meal for one has overcooked to the point of leather.

He slides the revolting, greasy lump into the trash, and drains the broad beans over the sink. They’re bland, and practically mush, but they’re still edible. They’ll have to do.

Disconcerted as he is, he doesn’t have much of an appetite, and only makes his way through half of the beans before he gives up and returns to the attic again. He searches every last inch. There’s nowhere for the man to have disappeared to, and no sign of this attached attic that he’d claimed to have come from.

Truth be told, he didn’t really expect to find any such thing.

He saw the man vanish. There one instant, gone the next, like a ghost in a child’s flip book. It sounds ludicrous, but Castiel is certain that he didn’t imagine it.

Returning to the living room, Castiel takes a seat and considers every possible angle, noting them down on a scrap of paper as he goes.

• A thief who got caught (but is exceptionally good at hiding?)

• A ghost

• I’m going mad!!!

He doesn’t feel as though he’s going mad, and yet it’s the most reasonable possibility. Tapping his pencil on the paper, he chews on his lip. The record stops playing, and Castiel stands to lift it from the turntable, sliding it back into the slipcover.

Perhaps, he thinks, there’s a gas leak in the building. Something toxic and undetectable that is making him imagine things that aren’t there. Granted, he’d expect hallucinations to be a little more fanciful than a handsome stranger who knocks over his side table and steals his jacket, but it’s as good an explanation as any.

Determined to get to the bottom of it, Castiel pushes himself to his feet and heads for the stairs, making his way down to the entryway that his apartment shares with North Street Finery and rapping lightly on the tailor’s glass door.

It’s only a moment before Henry Winchester, a gangly young man of nineteen and the son of Castiel’s landlord, arrives on the other side. He pulls the door open with a smile.

“Pa’s already gone home for the day,” he says in apology.

“Perhaps you could help me,” Castiel says. “I’m concerned there may be a gas leak in my apartment.”

“You smell gas?” Henry asks, startled, and Castiel shakes his head.

“I just got a little... dizzy,” he lies. “It’s entirely possible that I’m just tired, but I doubt I’ll be able to sleep until I’ve ruled a gas leak out. Would you mind?”

“No, not at all.”

Henry pulls the door shut and gestures toward the stairs, then follows Castiel up into the apartment. They make their way around slowly, sniffing, and Henry pauses by the stove.

“I can just barely smell gas here,” he says with a shrug. “No more than usual, though.”

With a tight smile, Castiel nods.

“Thank you, Henry,” he says.

“You take care, now,” Henry tells him. “If my mother finds out that you’re feeling unwell, you’ll never get rid of her.”

Alone again, Castiel sits in his living room and attempts to read, but his mind won’t stop flicking back to the man who was here. Dean. Who on Earth was he?

That night, as he undresses for bed, he pulls open the less-used side of his closet, just to check. His flight jacket is there where it should be, hanging just as he left it.

_____

If there’s one thing that Dean’s time in Iraq taught him, it’s that he has to trust his instincts. Right now though, his instincts are convinced that he just traveled back in time. He’s pretty sure his instincts are broken.

If he tries, really tries, he can almost convince himself that the man he saw was Castiel’s grandson. But there’s not a trace of another ladder in the attic, and the mirror is back where he’d thought it was. Dean’s leg is still dripping wet from the vase that spilled all over it. A pale purple rose petal is clinging to the water on his boot. The chances of this being an elaborate set up diminish to almost nothing, but he’s got to rule it out completely before he really lets himself panic.

Sam answers the phone on the second ring.

“So as far as I can tell,” Dean starts before Sam can even ask how he’s doing, “there’s two possibilities. Either I’ve finally gone off the deep end, or you’ve signed me up for some weird-ass prank show, and Ashton Kutcher is gonna jump out at me at any moment.”

“Um,” Sam says. “Hi?”

“Please tell me it’s the second one,” Dean says.

“What’s going on?”

He’s ready to relate the entire bizarre story to Sam when it occurs to him that it’s the kind of thing would probably lead to Sam turning up on his doorstep and forcing him to get his head checked, and while Dean’s 100% willing to admit that he’s got some post-traumatic stress issues and a whole lot of recurring anxiety, he’s positive that this is not even in the same ballpark.

Before Sam can get any ideas about driving to Illinois, Dean clings to the first lie he can come up with.

“I had a client today who was your exact double,” he says.

For the next twenty minutes, he describes in excruciating detail a series of events that never happened, and Sam--thankfully--has to meet someone before Dean is forced to think of another topic.

“You got a hot date, Sammy?”

“Something like that,” Sam replies, and he sounds so excited that Dean can’t even bring himself to make fun of him.

He ends the call soon after, and returns to the attic. The jacket is sitting where he left it, and on the floor nearby is the petal he’d peeled from his boot. As absurd as it seems, he’s sure that the jacket had something to do with it. He remembers slipping it on before the mirror suddenly shifted, and how it was only when he took it off that the man he’s trying not to think of as Castiel disappeared, along with his apartment.

He picks the jacket up, hands feeling suddenly clammy, and carries it down to the living room, where he sets it down on the coffee table. He watches it as though it might clamber up and throw itself on him like a facehugger alien.

Unsurprisingly, it remains still.

If I put it back on, maybe it’ll happen again. His heart rate picks up.

He’s hesitating, but he knows he’s going to do it. It’s only when he’s about to slide his arm inside that he thinks that he should take something to prove it happened, and walks over to the kitchen to grab his cell phone from the table so he can snap a photo or two. Grasping his phone tightly in his fist, Dean puts the jacket back on, and all at once the room shifts around him, easy as changing channels. His stomach lurches.

“Fucking hell,” he says, reaching out to steady himself on the back of a chair that doesn’t belong in his kitchen. From the other side of the room, he hears a low thud that sounds a lot like a book dropping onto the floor.

The same man from before lurches up from where he’d apparently been reclining on the couch and stares at Dean with wide eyes.

“Dean,” he says, his voice heavy with a mix of fear and astonishment that makes Dean’s breath hitch. “You’re back. I didn’t think you’d be back.”

He wants to ask the man’s name, to ask if he’s really Castiel, but he’s scared of the answer. Instead he just shrugs a little and gives an awkward wave.

“Not exactly sure where back is, but yeah. Hi.”

For a long moment, they watch one another, and Dean gets the distinct impression that he’s being sized up. The man opens his mouth a little, before closing it again. He huffs before he finally asks, “Are you a ghost?”

Dean blinks at him.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“I’m not the one who vanished into thin air,” the man says, slowly pushing to his feet and taking a small step toward Dean.

“I’m not a ghost,” Dean says.

“Then how did you get into my apartment? I checked all the locks. I always check the locks.”

“I, uh. Don’t really know how to answer that,” Dean admits.

“It’s not a difficult question.”

“You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“At the present moment I think I’m crazy, so that would be a welcome change.”

Dean looks at him carefully before he takes an unsteady breath.

“Okay. Just, uh... tell me your name, first.”

“Why?”

“So I’ll know how far off the reservation I am.”

“My name is Castiel,” he says.

Dean closes his eyes.

“The date?”

“September 21st.”

“What year is it?”

“If this is supposed to be a joke, I’m failing to see the humor.”

“Please. The year.”

“Nineteen forty five.”

Dean takes a deep breath.

“Alright. Okay, I’m-- look, I’m gonna need to sit down, okay?”

He plans to pull out the chair beside him, but instead he just sinks down right where he is and presses the knuckles of one hand against the floor. Grounds himself as best he can. Castiel is silent for a long while, and Dean tries to remember the breathing exercises he learned in the short time he spent seeing a therapist.

“Dean?” Castiel finally asks. “What year did you think it was?”

“Not nineteen forty-five,” Dean says weakly.

“What year?”

The thought of actually telling Castiel out loud that he’s from the goddamn future is so laughably ridiculous that Dean can’t bring himself to do it. He looks at the phone in his hand and figures it’ll do. He holds it up.

“Here,” he says.

“What is it?”

“It’s a phone,” Dean says.

Castiel eyes it warily, and Dean presses the home button with his thumb, making the screen light up with a picture of clouds that Dean’s been meaning to change to something more interesting since he bought the thing.

Castiel’s mouth falls open as he backs up a step, before swallowing convulsively and leaning back for a closer look. He reaches out.

“You can take it if you want,” Dean tells him.

Castiel pauses before he does, and as soon as his fingers come into contact with the cool metal and glass he lets out a shaky breath. He presses the home button and touches the screen gingerly, eyes widening as the screen flashes and changes with every point of contact.

“What--” he begins to ask, still tapping an index finger against the screen, and the phone starts blaring music, loud. He drops it on the floor with a clatter.

“Shit,” Dean says, reaching for the phone to silence it. Evidently, Cas is not ready for Black Sabbath. “Sorry. It’s, uh… kinda like a radio, too.”

“Who are you, Dean?” Castiel asks him warily. “Why are you here?”

“I’m nobody,” Dean says. “My grandfather owned the shop downstairs. He left it to me when he died.” 

“Your grandfather?”

“Henry Winchester.”

Castiel opens his mouth to respond, then closes it before he marches off into the stairwell that leads down to the shop. Dean scrambles to follow, and almost walks right into him at the bottom of the stairs.

Looking in through the door with North Street Finery printed on the glass, Dean can see a customer standing on the step stool. Beside him, scratching measurements into a yellow pad is a man more familiar than Dean can reasonably understand. 

Henry Winchester is young, maybe twenty years old, but Dean’s seen enough photos to recognize him immediately.

“Shit,” Dean says, and backs up, hitting the wall. “Holy shit.”

Until now, despite everything, there was still the smallest possibility that none of this was real. There was still a chance that some TV host was about to burst into the room and announce that he’d been fooled on some mind-fuck hidden camera show. Now, though... Henry is standing right there, exactly how he looked in pictures, and Dean’s head is spinning. 

The world is too colorful, he thinks. That’s what’s really throwing him off. Logically, he knows that the only reason the past looks the way it does in old newspaper photographs is because of fading ink, but at this point logic isn’t ranking all that high in his head.

His vision starts going spotty before he realizes that he’s not breathing properly, and then there are hesitant hands on his face. Warm, dry palms.

“Dean? Breathe. You need to breathe.”

“I’m--” Dean gasps, dizzy, and the hand on his cheek taps a couple of times to get his attention.

“Deep breath,” Castiel says, and demonstrates, his cheeks puffing out almost comically until Dean manages to follow his lead. “Come on, come back upstairs.”

Dean barely sees the staircase, his vision is swimming so badly, but soon he’s back in his living room. Castiel’s living room. The couch is still warm from Castiel laying on it.

By the time Dean is fully aware of his surroundings again, Castiel is sitting against the wall on the other side of the coffee table, knees bent and spread apart as he rests his elbows on his thighs, watching Dean carefully.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

Dean swallows and nods.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Straightening up, Dean sees his cell phone sitting on Castiel’s coffee table and picks it up. It’s calming to touch it; a reminder of something normal, of his own time. 

He doesn’t think twice about snapping a photo, and Castiel startles at the flash.

“Sorry,” Dean says, embarrassed as he lowers the phone. “Just... I want some proof that this is real, y’know? Picture seemed like a good idea.”

Castiel’s brow furrows.

“I thought you said that thing was a telephone.”

“It is,” Dean says. “It’s also a camera, and... a computer, I guess. It kinda does everything.”

“That’s a computer?” Castiel says flatly.

“Yeah, those are pretty new for you, hey?”

“I’ve never seen one,” Castiel admits. “But they’re supposedly the size of a small house.”

“Not anymore,” Dean says, then frowns. “Or, I mean... they won’t be.”

They fall silent, and Dean taps the phone on his knee.

“Sorry about the music before, by the way.”

“That was music?”

Dean’s not sure if Castiel is saying it to insult the song, or if he’s just genuinely confused, so he nods.

“I’ve got more on here if you didn’t like the other one,” he says eventually, and Castiel tilts his head as he considers it. Eventually, he gives a tiny nod.

Scrolling through the playlists he has saved, Dean finally settles on one he made a couple of weeks ago, and In the Evening starts to play.

Cas stares into space.

“When was this released?” he asks after a while, blinking his eyes back into focus as he looks at Dean.

“Nineteen seventy-nine,” Dean says, and chews on his lip before he adds. “The year I was born, actually.”

Cas closes his eyes and let's out an unsteady breath. He nods. Licks his lower lip. Opens his eyes again and looks over at Dean.

“I think I need a cigarette.”

“Yeah, I don't blame you.”

Pushing to his feet, Castiel heads toward his bedroom and pauses in the doorway.

“Are you coming?” he asks.

Castiel’s room is set up much the same as Dean’s is; the head of the bed against the right wall, the free-standing closet beside the door. He’s got a floor lamp where Dean has a side table, and though the walls are mostly bare, the single painting of a pier stretching out into a forest-flanked lake is hanging from the same hook that Dean’s been using to hold up a framed Star Wars poster. The picture of Castiel and the blond man standing in front of Angel Eyes is wedged under the edge of the frame.

“Same carpet,” he says aloud, and Castiel glances back at him. “It’s pretty worn down, but it’s the same.”

Castiel gives no response; just heads over to the window, sliding it open before climbing out onto the fire escape. Dean follows. He sits beside him on the cold metal grate and watches as Castiel pulls a thin, dented tin from his pocket. He flips open the lid, tapping it against his knee until a cigarette slides free. Watching him, Dean can’t help but notice how nice his hands are. Graceful, almost, in the way his long fingers move.

Castiel settles the cigarette between his lips and holds the tin out. Dean shakes his head.

“That shit’s what killed my Grandpa,” Dean says, and looks back over his shoulder into the apartment. Downstairs, he can make out the sound of people talking--of Henry talking. He shakes his head. When he looks back around, Castiel is frowning.

“Lung cancer,” Dean clarifies. Castiel frowns even more, still holding the unlit cigarette between his lips.

“That rumor’s still going around?” he asks.

“What, that smoking’ll kill you?”

Castiel nods, lighting up and taking a deep pull.

“It’s not a rumor,” Dean tells him, raising his brow. “It’s true. They have to print it on the packet and everything.”

Castiel sighs, smoke flowing out of his mouth and curling up toward the sky. He pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, eyes it morosely for a moment, and presses it out against the fire escape. Dean raises his brow.

“I doubt it’ll be my last,” Castiel admits. “But this one has served it’s purpose.”

Folding his arms around his knees, Castiel tilts his head back against the wall, and closes his eyes.

“Could you play some more music?” he asks.

“Sure,” Dean says. “What kind?”

“Whatever you like,” Castiel says.

Waking his phone back up, Dean flicks through his playlists, unable to settle on anything. Eventually he gives up and hits shuffle. An old Nat King Cole Trio song plays first, and Castiel opens his eyes to glance over at him. Dean gives him an awkward smile.

“I set it to play my entire library at random. Grandpa got me into all the classic jazz and blues stuff when I was young.”

“A serendipitous first piece, then,” Castiel replies.

“Yeah.”

For a while, they sit side by side, just listening as the songs change. From What Is This Thing Called Love?, it jumps to Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear The Reaper. Some of the lyrics to Led Zeppelin’s Lemon Song make Castiel lift his brow, but he doesn’t comment. Al Green, Prince, more Led Zeppelin, Bob Seger, Motorhead, Queen, and another Led Zeppelin song play before Castiel clears his throat to speak.

“Let’s say,” he says, spinning his lighter between his fingers. “Let’s say I’m beginning to entertain the notion that perhaps I haven’t lost my mind.”

“You and me both,” Dean says.

“Then how exactly are you here?”

Sighing, Dean hits pause on the music and chews on his lip. He’s not quite sure how to answer without sounding like a jackass, but he doesn’t have much choice.

“It’s gonna sound stupid, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the jacket,” Dean says, gesturing toward his own chest. “I mean… I put it on, I turn up back here. Take it off, and I’m back in 2008.”

Castiel stares at him, expression carefully blank, and Dean realizes that it’s the first time he’s actually mentioned the year he’s from. The silence drags out for an uncomfortably long moment before Castiel looks away and nods.

“So you’re saying it’s a magic jacket,” he finally says, completely deadpan. Dean groans and rubs at his face.

“Sure, if you wanna make it sound ridiculous.” 

“I’ll gladly accept any alternative descriptions, but that’s what you just described.”

Dean frowns and thunks his head back against the brick wall a couple of times. He clicks his teeth as he looks back at Castiel.

“Magic jacket is all I got. Did you piss off a wizard?”

Castiel squints at him. Dean rolls his eyes.

“Well, what about this?” Dean says, pulling the front of the jacket forward and gesturing toward the stitched red circle. “It’s the only weird thing about it. I’m guessing there’s a story there, at least.”

As he stares at it, the lighter slips from between Castiel’s fingers. A moment later it clatters against the street below.

“Agata,” he says.

“What?”

“In Poland,” Castiel says quietly. “I wound up in this tiny village in Kampinos Forest. Sieraków.”

“Sieraków... where your plane went down?” Dean asks, and Castiel looks at him in surprise. Dean grimaces, a little self-conscious. “I, uh... sorry. I found some stories about you when I found the jacket.”

“Oh,” Castiel says, and though Dean can tell he’s itching to know what the stories were, he doesn’t ask. “Well, a man found me. He let me into his home to rest until I could move on, and his wife, Agata, fixed my jacket.”

Castiel reaches across the space between them, his fingers brushing the red thread softly. Dean holds his breath.

“She didn’t speak a lot of English, and my Polish leaves a lot to be desired, but she said that she was blessing the jacket. That this circle she stitched would...”

He trails off, and Dean leans a little closer, trying to catch his eye.

“She said it would what?”

Castiel flushes and looks away.

“She said that it would return me to my sweetheart.”

Castiel’s face grows redder still, and when he glances back Dean winks at him. 

“You sayin’ I’m your sweetheart, Castiel?” 

“Obviously not,” Castiel says, and gets to his feet. “I don’t even know you.” He blinks, face paling so rapidly that Dean’s almost worried he’s going to pass out. “And you’re a man.”

“Right,” Dean says, taken aback. “Of course.”

Castiel climbs back in through the window without another word. For a long moment, Dean stays where he is, chewing on his lower lip and debating whether or not he should follow or just return to his own time. His decision is made when he hears a low dammit from inside the apartment.

Climbing back inside, he finds Cas before the open closet with the flight jacket in his hands, running his fingers over the unfinished red circle. He looks up at the identical jacket that Dean is wearing, eyes drawn to the completed stitches, before looking back at the jacket in his hands.

“Henry always hated loose threads,” Dean explains. “I couldn’t leave it half-finished.”

“That was the key,” Castiel says.

Dean furrows his brow, and Castiel sighs, shifting to sit on the edge of his bed with the jacket on his lap.

“That’s what Agata said. Completing the circle would complete the blessing. That must be why you were sent here. The jacket is trying to return to me.”

He frowns, looking down at the ground.

“I mustn’t--” he starts.

“What?”

“In your time,” Castiel murmurs. “I mustn’t be alive.”

Dean’s skin prickles, his heart thudding hard.

“You don’t know that.”

“Then why didn’t it send you to me then?”

“Maybe...”

“Maybe what?”

“That might be my fault. I was... when I was stitching it up, I was thinking about you, and, um... how I wished we could’ve been friends.” Dean grimaces. “Shit, that sounds lame out loud.”

“Why would you wish that?”

“I told you, man. I read about you. Seemed like someone I would’ve been friends with.”

He doesn’t mention the fact that he’d thought he was gorgeous, though considering the way Castiel described the blessing Agata placed on it, he suspects that had something to do with it, too. Castiel won’t meet his eye, and Dean’s own gaze lifts to the painting over his head. The photograph stuck in the corner seems to leap out at him, and Dean feels a heavy wave of guilt.

Of course.

The man in the picture, the man he suspects Castiel ran away with--he’s not here now, and it’s likely that Castiel hasn’t seen him since the war. All this time, Castiel has had the means to find him in an instant, and Dean’s wasted it.

“Maybe if you complete the circle now,” Dean begins, and Castiel looks up at him sharply. “It’ll undo all of this. Take you to your, uh... to whoever it is you’re missing.”

“If I do that, the thread will be complete in the future, and you’ll never have been here to tell me that,” Castiel points out. “So I wouldn’t know to do it in the first place.”

“Goddamn time travel paradox,” Dean sighs. “I’m sorry, man.”

“It’s alright.”

Still, Dean feels the burden of responsibility weighing on his conscience. He looks up at the picture again. If he can figure out where the man was living after the war, maybe he can come back again and help Castiel find him.

It’s tempting to ask about the photo, to at least get a name, but Castiel is clearly upset, and he’s already proven more than a little skittish about admitting his interest in men even when Dean blatantly flirted with him, so Dean decides to figure it out on his own. It can’t be too difficult--he knows the first initial, and that he was on the same flight crew as Castiel, after all. He has faith that Sam and his not-quite-girlfriend have the resources to match the face to a name.

“So,” Dean says, clicking his teeth. “I guess I’ll, uh... I’ll get out of your hair.”

Castiel looks up so sharply it’s a wonder he doesn’t hurt himself.

“Will you come back?”

“Yeah, if you want.”

“Yes,” Castiel nods. “I’d like that.”

***

It doesn’t escape Dean’s notice when he picks up the phone the following afternoon that he’s spoken to Sam more times in the past few days than he has in months. The thought makes him guilty, as though he’s using his brother. Deep down, he knows that’s not entirely true. 

After all, he’d had the thought in the beginning that he was only using his desire to know about the owner of the jacket as an excuse to call his brother.

If one is true, then the other can’t be. By the time Sam picks up, Dean’s managed to push away most of the guilt.

“How’d the date go?”

“Good,” Sam says, and his voice has an airy quality that Dean remembers from when they were kids and Sam had spent the afternoon next door, jumping on Amy’s trampoline. “Really good.”

“You gonna see her again?”

Distantly, he hears a woman’s voice, and Sam clears his throat.

“Um, hold on a sec,” he says, and the phone clatters as he puts it down.

Dean can’t help but laugh.

“Shut up,” Sam says when he picks the phone back up. “We’ve known each other a while, it’s not like this is new. Well... the dating is new. But you know what I mean.”

“Hey, I’m happy for you, man,” Dean says.

“Yeah?”

“‘Course.”

“Me too,” Sam says, sounding wistful, and Dean wishes he could see the goofy-ass look that he’s sure Sam has on his face right now. “Anyway. We’re heading out in like, five minutes. So... did you need anything?”

“Right! It’s about the jacket again, kinda. Actually, Eileen might be interested in this too if you wanna put me on speaker.”

“Eileen’s Deaf,” Sam explains. “But, I’ll, um... I’ll pass it on.”

“Oh, okay,” Dean lifts his brow, and wonders if that’s why Sam’s suddenly such a huge Skype fan. “Well, there’s this other guy from the same flight crew as Castiel. I’m not sure about his name, other than that it starts with D, but I found a picture of them together. I’m pretty sure he’s the guy mentioned in the newspaper articles.”

“The one he wrote the letters to before he disappeared?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “He’s obviously pretty important to Cas, so--”

“Cas?”

“Um. Castiel. That name’s a mouthful,” Dean says, grimacing at the weak cover, though it’s not as though Sam’s going to guess the truth.

“Right,” Sam laughs. “So, what... you’re hoping we can track down this other guy, and he might know if there’s any next of kin to give the jacket to?”

“Something like that,” Dean says.

“I’m pretty sure I saw full crew records in the stuff Eileen dug up last time,” Sam says. “Should be easy enough. I’m not sure if we’ll get a chance to check for the next couple of days, though. There’s this big exhibit coming in tomorrow, so Eileen’s gonna be swamped.”

“There’s no rush,” Dean assures him. “Just when you get a chance.”

“Should be able to swing it by the weekend.”

“That’s awesome, Sam. Thanks.”

“No problem. So, hey, we’ve got reservations tonight...”

They end the call shortly after that, and though Dean is exhausted, he can’t relax. He wanders around the apartment, snacking out of agitated boredom, until the sight of every room starts to drive him mad. It’s already getting late, but he can tell that sleep is a long way off.

Without anything else to do, and no ability to focus on anything he tries to watch on TV, he heads downstairs to the shop and flips on the light. The smell of cotton and dressmakers chalk is instantly soothing, and he breathes deeply for a moment before heading properly inside.

The stack of designs that the LARP society approved is sitting on the desk, all ready to be turned into patterns and prepared for sewing over the next week. Cracking his knuckles, he takes the first design from the top of the pile and gets to work.

By dawn, he’s got the pieces for all five costumes cut out and ready to start pinning together. He can barely see straight. He pauses at the door before he heads upstairs, hanging a sign in the window to announce “OPEN ON REQUEST FOR URGENT REPAIRS ONLY” along with his cell number, then goes directly to bed. He sleeps until early afternoon, blessedly uninterrupted by phone calls.

It’s the end of the week before Sam contacts him with news.

“His name was Lieutenant Daniel Fisher,” Sam tells him over the phone, and Dean can hear him flipping through papers as he talks. “But it looks like he never made it back. He’s listed as MIA during the Warsaw Airlift.”

Dean’s heart sinks.

“Are you sure? Was there anyone else on the crew that could’ve been--”

“He’s the only one whose first name starts with D,” Sam says. “And it looks like him in the picture. There’s a guy whose last name was Deveraux, but he was short and dark haired and probably in his early forties, so I don’t think that’s him.”

“And Daniel Fisher definitely died in action?”

“Well... his tags were never recovered, so there’s nothing official, but there’s an unverified account of an unnamed Air Force crewman having discovered his body, and there’s no record of him ever returning home. His twin sister is still around, though. Adina Stone. She’s been living in an assisted living community out in Phoenix since she had a stroke a few years back. Eighty-nine years old. Not sure how much she’d be able to tell you, but she’s there.”

Nodding, Dean writes down both names. If no tags ever came back, there’s still a chance he returned to the US and started a new life for himself--especially considering the possibility that he and Castiel had been involved to the point of running away together. Maybe he was estranged from his family

“Okay,” he says, a dim hope unfurling in his chest at the thought that he might still be able to help Castiel track this man down. “Thanks for the help, Sammy.”

***

The following afternoon, after closing up early and spending a few hours online with increasingly fruitless Google searches, Dean realizes that he’s not going to get anywhere without more information. He doesn’t particularly feel like bothering an octogenarian, so there’s really only one course of action that he can see.

He needs to visit Castiel again.

Sure, he also wants to visit him just for the hell of it. He’s big enough to admit that the guy interests him, that he’d like to get to know him more as a person and less as a name on a page, and if anyone asked, he wouldn’t deny that Castiel is easy on the eyes.

But that’s all secondary. He wants to help him. If there’s some way he can figure out where Daniel Fisher is, he’s going to do it. Castiel has been through hell. He deserves to be happy.

Dean’s already got the jacket in his hands, along with a duffel bag full of newer records that he thinks Castiel might enjoy, when he glances down and realizes he’s wearing the sweats and stretched old AC/DC t-shirt he threw on after his shower. The last two times he’s been back, they’ve been too preoccupied with the absurdity of the situation to leave the apartment, but now, given time to get used to the whole time travel thing--as much as he figures either of them could ever get used to it--there’s a possibility that they’ll head outside.

He can’t wear this.

Clicking his teeth together, he heads back into his room and digs through his closet to find something more era-appropriate. It’s a damn good thing he has such an affinity for vintage clothing, because it only takes him ten minutes to throw something passably 40’s style together. The pants are perhaps a little too fitted, but the shirt and tie are perfect. He ums and ahs over a pair of suspenders for a few minutes before leaving them in the closet, and heads for the bathroom to look himself over.

Dean smooths down his shirt and tries--unsuccessfully--to flatten the stubborn strand of hair that keeps sticking out over his left ear. Maybe this is a little much, but he wants to look the part this time, just in case.

That, and he just plain enjoys dressing up from time to time. Sue him. He looks good.

Satisfied, he slips his arms through the sleeves of the jacket, and reaches out to wipe the steam from the mirror glass before it occurs to him that he hasn’t had hot water running in here since before breakfast.

He hears Castiel’s startled yelp before he sees him.


	4. Chapter 4

Castiel has lived through more nightmares than he cares to think of, but this one--being unexpectedly naked in the presence of a virtual stranger--is so mundane when compared to the rest that he’s more mortified by his own reaction to Dean’s sudden appearance than he is by the situation itself.

The sound he makes is embarrassing enough, but then Dean really _looks_ at him, and Castiel’s rush to adequately cover himself results in an entirely ungraceful trip backwards into the tub. The shower curtain pulls free of the railing, rings hitting the tile with a series of pings, and Castiel’s head knocks against the wall with a painful thud. He groans.

“Shit,” Dean says. “Cas, are you--”

“I’m alright,” Castiel says, closing his eyes in the vain hope that if he can’t see Dean standing there, the memory of this moment won’t stick. “Please just-- just wait outside.”

“Yeah, of course.”

He’s glad to hear that Dean sounds sheepish, but Castiel still doesn’t open his eyes until he hears him close the bathroom door. He heaves himself up out of the tub and takes a breath before looking at his reflection. His cheeks are burning scarlet, the blush spreading all the way down to his chest.

“Sorry,” Dean says through the door.

Castiel isn’t quite sure how to respond. He clears his throat.

“I’ll be out in a moment,” he says eventually.

When he emerges, Dean is sitting on the couch, jiggling his knee and rubbing at the back of his neck.

“How’s your head?” he asks.

“It’s fine,” Castiel tells him.

“Look, man, I’m really sorry I busted in on you back there, I wasn’t thinking--”

“Perhaps the bathroom isn’t the best place to leap through time,” Castiel cuts in to suggest.

“Yeah, I guess not. Could’ve been worse, though. At least you weren’t on the can,” Dean says, then scrunches up his nose as he appears to realize that he’s led them into even less comfortable territory. “Uh. Anyway.”

Dean gestures toward the coffee table, and Castiel looks to see a duffel bag.

“What’s this?”

“I thought I’d bring you some stuff from, um... from 2008,” Dean says. “Prove that I’m not trying to dupe you.” He gives Castiel a nervous smile. “You don’t think I’m trying to dupe you, right?”

“Well, that all depends,” Castiel says, and feels his mouth twitching a little at the corner.

“On what?”

“Whether you’re real or not.”

Dean snorts.

“Jury’s still out, hey?” he asks, and Castiel shrugs a little. Dean grins. “Yeah, same here, man. I’m still not convinced I haven’t discovered some new facet of PTSD that the meds don’t help with.”

The abbreviation means nothing to Castiel, and he frowns as he tries to remember if he’s heard it before.

“Post-traumatic stress disorder,” Dean explains. “Like, uh... shellshock? Combat fatigue?”

“Oh,” Castiel says, surprised by the ease with which Dean brought it up. He’s been lucky in comparison to many, but he’s still been plagued by insomnia and fits of panic since he came home. The headaches have been maddening. The listlessness exhausting. He hasn’t bothered to speak to anyone about it, though. He’s already heard too many stories passed back and forth between strangers at the tavern over the road about soldiers come home from war only to be sent off to some institution to be electrocuted or lobotomized for their trouble. It’s the main reason he never mentioned Dean to anyone. He swallows convulsively. “There’s medication for that?”

“For the anxiety,” Dean says, and now he looks a little uncomfortable. A little on edge. Castiel suspects he didn’t quite mean to mention it. “Doesn’t do much for the nightmares, though. Truth be told it doesn’t do a hell of a lot for the anxiety a lot of the time, either. You saw my freakout a few days ago. Though I guess that’s not exactly a shocker, considering.”

“A few days ago?” Castiel frowns, then sits up a little straighter. “Wait, Dean-- do you mean to tell me that it was only days ago that you last came here?”

“Yeah,” Dean says slowly. “Six days. Are you-- how long was it for you?”

“A little less than a year.”

Dean widens his eyes.

“And there were almost two weeks between that and the first time,” Castiel adds.

“That was only like... five or six hours for me.”

Reaching for a notepad on the coffee table, Cas jots down the numbers, asking Dean for specifics as he does, and quickly calculates the conversion rate.

“Every hour in your time is roughly sixty in mine.”

Dean’s eyes widen at that.

“Shit, really? I’ll have to keep that in mind,” Dean glances down. “Uh, if you even want me to come back again, I mean.”

“No! I mean, yes, I’d definitely like for you to come back. Just... perhaps you should try to limit your travels to the attic. Less chance of embarrassing either one of us that way.”

“Point,” Dean laughs, and Cas grins back before he looks back at the notepad, tapping it with his pencil. “So this isn’t too weird?”

“ _Too weird_ is an understatement. But I’ve been told I’m odd my entire life, so ‘weird’ doesn’t really bother me.”

“Even better,” Dean laughs again, and shakes his head. “Nearly a year. Jesus. I would’ve come sooner if I knew it was that long.”

Dean seems genuinely unsettled by the thought that so much time had passed. It’s almost sweet, Castiel thinks, to see the furrow in Dean’s brow at the thought of having left Castiel to think he might have just imagined him.

“Can I ask,” he says after a moment. “You mentioned combat fatigue earlier… you’ve been at war?”

“Yeah.”

Castiel sighs and rubs at his eyes.

“More than sixty years in the future, and nothing learned.”

“Yeah. People still suck no matter what year it is,” Dean says with a sigh.

“How long has it been for you? Since you got back.”

“Little over seven months. How long for you?”

“It’s been a year, two weeks and three days since I arrived back in Normal,” Castiel says.

“You don’t know the hours and minutes?” Dean jokes, and Castiel just half smiles at him before he glances at the time.

“Eight hours. I’m not _certain_ on the minutes, but I think around twenty-seven.”

“Smartass.”

“You asked.”

Dean grins at him, then his smile falters.

“Wait… a year, two weeks and three days?”

“Yes.”

“So the first time I turned up here--”

“I’d only been back a few weeks,” Castiel nods.

“Wow. Sorry, man. Not that I even meant to turn up at all, but I bet that messed with you.”

“Like I said, I did consider it a _very_ real possibility that I’d lost my mind,” Castiel admits. “I also considered toxic gas, but that was ruled out early.”

“Good to know.”

“Do you think it...” Castiel trails off, uncertain of how to ask. If he even should. Dean is quiet and patient, and that’s enough to strengthen Castiel’s resolve. “You think it ever gets easier?”

Dean gives him a helpless shrug.

“I hope so.”

It’s the answer Castiel expected. He sighs and frowns.

“What good is having a friend from the future if he can’t tell me everything is going to be okay?”

Dean just gestures toward the bag on the table.

“Hey, I brought you the songs of my people. That’s almost as good as a sports almanac, and less likely to get you in trouble.”

“How would--”

Dean waves a hand in the air.

“Remind me to bring my laptop next time. I’ll show you _Back to the Future_ and we can relate to the characters more than anyone ever intended.”

“What on Earth is a laptop?”

Over the next half hour, every answer Dean gives him leads to five new questions. Computers that function as portable televisions. The ability to make a phone call and see the person on the other end. Star Trek and The Jetsons and the moon landing in 1969. When Dean stands to excuse himself to the bathroom, Castiel’s head is spinning.

He wanders into the kitchen just for something to do, needing to occupy himself while he thinks on everything Dean has told him, and is just closing the fridge when he hears the creak of the bathroom door.

Dean should step back into the room almost right away. When he doesn’t, Cas gets a little worried that he’s left without saying anything. He crosses the floor quickly, and stops in the doorway when he finds Dean on the landing, looking closely at a picture hanging on the wall.

“That’s my sister,” Castiel says. Dean flinches, a hand rising to rub at his chest as he looks back at Castiel.

“You tiptoe in here?”

“I walked normally,” Castiel replies with a frown.

“Normal for a ninja,” Dean mutters, and turns to inspect the picture again. “Your sister’s got good taste in cars.”

“She did,” Castiel agrees, and gives a sad smile when Dean glances back at him. “Hael died a few years ago.”

“Oh--shit, I’m sorry, Cas.”

“She was… troubled, near the end. Our father bought her the car in the hope that a little independence might help her, but… well, it turned out that her violent mood swings were caused by a tumor in the brain. By the time her doctor realized the issue…”

Castiel trails off with a shrug. It’s still difficult to think of Hael--she had been a shy, creative girl right up until the end, when her moods suddenly began to swing from one extreme to the other, and all her interest in art and photography had fallen to the wayside. Castiel still has her camera and her car, both of which she hastily gave to him when she became aware of how dire her diagnosis was.

Their father had been furious, but ultimately made no effort to reclaim either. Castiel hasn’t seen him since Hael’s funeral.

“You have any other siblings?”

“I have two older brothers, but I haven’t spoken to either of them in years, and I don’t intend to.”

Dean lifts his brow, and Castiel feels himself flush.

“I apologize, that was--”

“No need,” Dean assures him. “They must be real pieces of work if you’ve cut ‘em out.”

Frowning at the odd turn of phrase--certainly not the first he’s heard from Dean, and he’s glad he’s made it this far without needing to ask for clarification--Castiel takes a step back into the kitchen, and Dean follows.

“Technically, they cut me out. My parents, too. The only family I still have any contact with is my uncle, Marv, and that’s only because he’s a relentless gossip who likes to interfere. He comes by occasionally, always unannounced, and is near impossible to get rid of until he’s managed to eke out some new piece of information to take back to my father.”

He hesitates, then, his hand resting on the back of one of the kitchen chairs as he weighs up the risks of telling Dean why. Dean seems to sense his uncertainty. He pats him firmly on the shoulder.

“You don’t have to tell me, but if you’re worried about telling me… look, just… I might get it more than you’re expecting me to get it.”

Dean shoots him a meaningful look. With a nod, Castiel clears his throat.

“Essentially, they felt that my... proclivities were out of line with their faith, and demanded I fall in line. I could not, so they told me to leave.”

“My dad was kinda the same when he found out I was bisexual,” Dean says, and Castiel’s eyes widen as he looks at Dean. Dean just raises his brow. “Don’t give me that look, Cas. I haven’t exactly been subtle.”

Castiel’s cheeks grow hot, and he looks down at his hands again.

“Oh.”

“It’s… in my time, it’s still not… it’s not perfect. But I don’t have to hide it. My family knows, my friends know. Dad was the only one who had any kind of problem, but Mom laid down the law pretty hard. He’s gone now, anyhow. And I mean, I haven’t brought anyone home in a while. Like… years. I was nineteen the last time I seriously dated anyone--this girl I went to school with, Lisa. And I a friends-with-benefits thing with this guy named Victor back in Lawrence after I got discharged, but not since I moved here.”

“I see.”

Dean clears his throat, and when Castiel chances a look at him he’s rubbing the back of his neck.

“Is this topic making you uncomfortable?” he asks.

Castiel vigorously shakes his head.

“No! No, I just… it’s been a long time since I discussed these things with anyone. Not since… not since Daniel. He was my co-pilot on my first B-17.”

“Oh?” Dean asks, evidently angling for more information, and Castiel leans toward the table to flip through Dean’s records again, just so he can avoid looking at him.

“It’s strange to talk about this candidly,” he admits, turning an album in his hands and inspecting the cover. “Did you know?”

Dean doesn’t answer right away, and when Castiel looks at him he looks confused. Castiel gestures toward himself.

“Did you know about me?”

“Not a hundred percent, but I was pretty sure. Gaydar’s a wonderful thing.”

Castiel lets out a low snort.

“That’s quite clever.”

“Yeah? Wish I could say I made it up.”

“You could have told me you did,” Castiel points out. “I wouldn’t have any way of knowing.”

Dean laughs.

“Damn, you’re right. Didn’t think of that.”

***

They’ve been talking for hours, listening to record after record, when Castiel’s stomach rumbles. He glances up at the clock on the wall. It’s a little after ten o’clock.

“I was planning to make something to eat after I showered, but I completely forgot.”

“My bad.”

“Have you eaten?” Castiel asks, then frowns. “Come to think of it, what time was it for you when you came here?”

“Three-ish in the afternoon. Couldn’t focus at work, so I closed up early. Will anywhere still be open?”

Castiel is already on his feet.

“I’ll cook,” he says.

“You don’t have to--”

Castiel shakes his head, looking at Dean as he walks backward toward the fridge.

“I enjoy cooking,” he says with a smile. “Or, I used to. I think I have enough for both of us.”

Pulling open the fridge, he pushes a bottle of ketchup aside before his eyes fall on the small package of meat wrapped in butcher’s paper. He unwraps it and sighs at the miserable sight.

“I’ll be glad when rationing ends. It’s been years since I ate a meal that tasted like more than its individual parts.”

“Do you think you could wait for like... half an hour?”

Glancing back at Dean, Castiel frowns and tilts his head to the side.

“I suppose?”

“Okay,” Dean nods, and walks closer, stepping right into the middle of the kitchen. “I’ve got a couple of good steaks in the fridge.”

“What are you--?”

“It’s an hour a minute, right? I’ll be as fast as I can.”

“Dean, wait--”

Before he can finish the sentence, Dean pulls the jacket off and vanishes into thin air. Castiel’s skin breaks out in a cold sweat.

The first time Dean left, Castiel had been so confused that he barely registered what had happened. The second, Castiel had looked away just before he did it.

This time, he was standing right in front of him, and Castiel wasn’t prepared for the viscerally wrong feeling that swept over him. For a moment, he stands frozen. Stares at the empty air that Dean left behind.

Then it occurs to him that Dean’s coming back, any minute now. Realistically, he knows that Dean will be fifteen minutes at least--that gives him fifteen seconds to find what he’s looking for and put the jacket back on--but the thought of him suddenly reappearing right where Castiel is standing makes him start to worry about the dangers of leaping through time.

If Dean appears, right here, would they end up fused together somehow? The thought is terrifying.

Hastily, Castiel makes his way back to the couch and sits, staring toward the kitchen.

Even though he’s waiting for it, he still startles when Dean pops back into existence, gasping for breath and holding two bags full of food. He’s red in the face, and Castiel suspects that he spent the past forty seconds of his own time frantically leaping from fridge to pantry as quickly as he could.

“What’s all that?” Castiel asks, and Dean wheezes instead of answering, dumping the bag on the counter.

“Sorry,” he says after he’s caught his breath. “How long was I gone?”

“About forty minutes,” Castiel tells him.

Dean shakes his head, leaning against the counter as Castiel approaches.

“Shit. Sorry.”

“I thought you were just getting steak?”

“That was the plan,” Dean says, and waves his hand toward the bag in invitation when Castiel hesitates to look through it. “But you said you missed good food, so...”

Sorting through the bag, Castiel’s eyes widen as he pulls out jar after jar of spices; crushed garlic; hot sauce; a carton holding almost a dozen eggs; a box of chocolate chip cookies; a mostly-full milk carton; a red bell pepper; a block of cheese; a bar of chocolate; a can with _Reddi-Wip_ printed on the side; two enormous steaks; and finally, a cardboard bakery box. He flips the lid up and feels his mouth water at the sight of a beautiful apple pie.

“Dean,” he says, looking up him where he still leans against the counter. “This is...”

“Yours,” Dean tells him. “Well, you can share the steak with me tonight. And I wouldn’t mind a slice of that pie after. Been looking forward to that. But the rest is all yours.”

“I can’t accept this.”

“You can,” Dean says. “Please. Consider it reparations for me walking in on you in the shower.”

Castiel’s face burns at the reminder, and he looks away from Dean, returning his gaze to the food that covers his kitchen counter.

“I didn’t have many veggies,” Dean says, a note of apology in his voice, and Castiel shakes his head.

“I have vegetables. But all these spices--Dean, you don’t know how much I’ve missed spices. And chocolate. And _pie_.”

“You should write me a list,” Dean says. “For next time. Stuff you can’t get your hands on. I’ll bring it back.”

“Dean, I couldn’t--”

“Cas, I’m bringing stuff whether you like it or not. I can always google what was rationed, so you’re better off just telling me.”

“You can... what?”

“Oh, uh... it’s. Remember I told you my phone is a computer?”

“Yes.”

“Well, all the computers in the world are kind of connected. I can access just about any information I want. Like, um. Like a library, sort of.”

“That sounds... potentially overwhelming.”

“I guess,” Dean shrugs. “But it means I can find out what kind of things were rationed. So if you don’t tell me which things you’re missing, you’re just gonna end up with everything.”

“You’re serious.”

“Deadly.”

Castiel looks at him for a long moment, wondering what he’s done to deserve such kindness.

“Sugar,” he says finally. “And honey.”

“That all?”

Castiel chews on the inside of his lip.

“Can you get good coffee beans?” he asks, and Dean beams at him, taking the package of steak out of his hands and setting it on the counter.

“I can get you the _best_ coffee beans.”

***

They return to the couch after they’ve eaten, and though their conversation is stimulating, Castiel’s eyes start to droop around 2am. He startles awake when Dean reaches across the couch to pat him on the shoulder.

“I should let you get some sleep,” Dean says, and somehow the thought of him leaving already makes Castiel want to stretch this out.

“I’m not that tir--” he cuts himself off with a yawn, and glares when Dean laughs at him.

“You were saying?”

Castiel sighs, rubbing at his face and blinking hard.

“Perhaps you’re right.”

Pushing to his feet, Dean stretches out his arms and looks around, stooping to grab his duffel full of records. He settles it onto his shoulder.

“So, I’ll try and get back in a couple of days,” Dean tells him, rocking awkwardly from foot to foot as Castiel looks up at him. “Uh... actually. What’d that be for you?”

Dean does the math in his head, lips moving as he works through the numbers, but when he reaches an answer he frowns and seems to start over. Castiel doesn’t blame him: it seems like an unreasonably long time.

“A hundred and twenty days,” Castiel says, and Dean stops counting. “Though, that’s assuming a full forty-eight hour period in your time, so if you visited a little earlier in the day it might be closer to a hundred.”

“That’s a third of a year,” Dean says. Castiel is oddly gratified to hear that he seems disappointed by the thought.

“Yes.”

“Shit, man. Sorry. Maybe I can--”

“It’s fine. I have other friends.”

He’s not sure why the lie fell so easily from his tongue, but the thought of Dean rushing back out of pity makes him crumple inward. He’d rather spend the next few months as he has spent the last than feel like an obligation. He gives Dean what he hopes seems like an easy smile, and Dean looks away, embarrassed.

“Right. Yeah, of course. I guess, um... I guess I’ll see you, then.”

Castiel reaches out his hand.

“It was good to see you, Dean,” Castiel says, and Dean’s palm slips against his, warm and dry. It’s a comforting feeling, having Dean’s hand in his.

“Yeah, Cas,” Dean smiles. “You, too.”

***

The sun is still up when Dean gets back to his own time, and it throws him off for a moment. Makes him feel off-kilter and slightly nauseated.

Dumping the bag along with the jacket on his coffee table, he rolls his head from side to side, cracking his neck. It’s way too early to go to bed, but he’s bushed. The couch calls him.

Laying under a heavy throw rug, he switches on the TV and lets out a pleased hum when he sees the opening credits for an episode of Dr Sexy flickering over the screen.

For a while, he half-watches the show, barely registering the plot as he drifts at the edge of consciousness. It’s only when his cell chimes with a text message that he realizes he fell asleep. It’s a message from Sam, asking if he’d had any luck tracking down more information on Daniel Fisher.

Dean blinks at the message for almost a full minute before he groans and thumps his head back against the side of the couch. He spent hours with Castiel, and he never once asked about Daniel.

“That was the whole reason you went back, you jackass,” he mutters to himself, typing a brief _not yet_ in reply to Sam. “Not to have a goddamn dinner date.”

 _Next time,_ he tells himself. He’ll take back some sugar, honey, and coffee, and he’ll find out what he can about the man he’s pretty sure was Castiel’s lover. The jealous little part of him that he can tell wants to keep Castiel for himself can just shut the hell up.

***

Standing with his hands submerged in warm, soapy water, Castiel chews on his lip and wonders how long it will be before Dean returns. If he might arrive sooner than planned. It’s strange how keenly he desires more of Dean’s time.

How sudden and strong the feeling is.

It’s only been half an hour since Dean left, and already Castiel is counting the minutes to their next meeting. It’s a foolish thing to do, considering that they clearly established _a third of a year_ as the likely time until Dean’s next visit, but he can’t seem to help himself.

He leaves the dishes to dry on the rack by the sink and makes his way to bed, only to stare up at the ceiling and wonder at how Dean might be doing the very same thing.

The last time he felt anything like this was shortly after he’d started training to become an airline pilot. Balthazar had been another student, and they’d been good friends right up until Castiel pushed him away. He’d been protecting himself from heartbreak, so certain that he was falling for the unavailable man that he felt it necessary to cease spending time with him.

Now, looking back, what he’d felt for Balthazar was merely a shadow of what he feels for Dean. The thought of pushing him away, even to spare himself pain, is anathema.

“Damn it,” he murmurs to himself after a sleepless hour, his eyes stinging with exhaustion as his mind refuses to let him stop thinking.

Eventually he drifts off, and dreams of flying to the moon with Dean as his co-pilot.

Castiel is trying not to let the disappearing days get to him. When a hundred and twenty days came and went with no visit, he told himself not to fret. Dean’s got a life in his own time. A job. Family. Friends.

At all hours, he’s calculating time differences.

A hundred and sixty three days have passed for him. That’s not _quite_ three days for Dean. He probably had a long day and had to sleep. Or he got stuck at the grocery store buying the sugar and honey and coffee that Castiel admitted to wanting.

The nervous pit in his stomach wants to convince him that all these rational thoughts are wrong, and that instead Dean has decided not to come back. That it’s too much trouble.

Worse, that something has happened to the jacket, and he can’t come back.

Worse still, that something has happened to Dean.

Try as he might, Castiel can’t quite seem to get his mind off him. Even while he’s at work, attempting to let the slow and steady push of the broom on the store’s front stoop hypnotize him into calm, he still can’t pull his thoughts far from Dean.

It’s still worse on his days off. Today, it’s just gone eleven in the morning and he’s still not dressed. He’s down to the last dregs of his instant coffee, and as he sits at his spindly kitchen table he forces his mind from Dean for the third time in an hour, and wonders if it’s time he started to give some serious thought to what he’s going to do with the rest of his life.

Before the war, he’d been training to be a commercial pilot. Now, the thought of flying another plane is enough to make his hands start shaking. Perhaps a chef, he thinks. Cooking is certainly something he enjoys, and he knows that others enjoy his food--Dean had been particularly impressed with the way he’d prepared the potatoes they’d eaten when he was last here. In fact, Dean had--

Castiel blinks.

With a groan, he leans forward and rests his head on the table. _I almost made it five minutes_ , he thinks.

He’s still sitting there when he hears a creak from the attic, and followed by a few shuffling footsteps and a knock against the ceiling.

“Cas? You home?”

“Dean!”

He feels foolish as soon as the name leaves his mouth, the smile he can’t control stretching his cheeks as he hurries out onto the landing and pulls on the cord for the attic stairs.

Dean grins down at him through the opening, and Castiel’s heart thuds at the sight.

As soon as they’re on the same level, Castiel wants to embrace him, but he stops himself. It’s only been a few days for Dean. Such an exuberant response would seem unnecessary. Dean steps forward though, and pulls him into the tight hug that Castiel didn’t allow himself to initiate.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says when he pulls back. “Didn’t mean to leave so long between visits. What’s it been, like... six months?”

“Almost seven. But it’s alright.”

“Yeah?” Dean smiles even bigger than before. It’s crooked and beautiful, and the sight takes his breath away despite the frequency with which he’s imagined it. “You been okay?”

Pulling back, Castiel heaves out a breath and nods, gesturing toward the kitchen.

“Why don’t you go make yourself comfortable?” he says, before gesturing down at himself. “I need to get dressed.”

When he makes his way back out into the kitchen, he finds Dean sitting at the table with two mugs of rich steaming coffee. Even from the doorway he can smell the difference.

“That’s real coffee,” he says, breathing deep.

“Yup,” Dean grins. “The good stuff. Got in one of those frouffy hipster places.”

The words are mostly meaningless, but Castiel doesn’t care. He wraps both hands around his mug and inhales the smell.

“Ohh, that’s good,” he says.

Dean laughs at him.

“You need some time alone, there?”

Castiel feels his cheeks burning, but he ignores Dean’s comment, closing his eyes and taking a slow sip. When he opens his eyes again, he finds Dean watching him with an expression of unguarded interest that he quickly schools into something far less readable.

“So,” Dean says, pausing to clear his throat. “You got any plans for today?”

“I don’t yet.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

“We could go for a drive?” Castiel suggests after a moment. “I know you wanted to see the Zephyr in person.”

The way Dean smiles at that has Castiel feeling a little weak at the knees, and he’s glad that he’s already sitting.

“That sounds awesome.”

“Perhaps we could make a day of it… take something for lunch, eat outdoors seeing as it’s such a fine day.”

“Awesome,” Dean repeats, and gets to his feet. “But, uh… You mind giving me forty minutes? An hour? It’s already pretty warm in here, and I think I’ll melt in this get up if we’re outside for more than five minutes.”

Taking a closer look at his clothes, Castiel can’t help but agree. He’s wearing thick red flannel under the jacket, and another collarless shirt under that.

“Good idea,” Castiel tells him. “I’ll organize our lunch while you’re gone.”

“Awesome,” Dean says again, and with a wink, he grins and slips the jacket off.

Castiel is relieved that his blush will have faded before Dean gets back.

***

They drive for nearly two hours before Dean gets hungry enough to suggest they start looking for a place to stop, and ten minutes later Castiel pulls onto a rocky patch at the edge of some woods.

“I haven’t been here for years, but there are some nice spots along the Sangamon if you don’t mind walking a little first,” Castiel tells him.

They hike through the trees, following a vague path worn down by other visitors until they come to the river. It’s wider than Dean expected, rocks and fallen branches sticking up out of the water. On the opposite bank, a wide, flat rock sits in a patch of dappled shade, making a perfect spot to stop for lunch. Side by side, they walk upstream, looking for a place to cross. Stones clatter and roll underfoot as they follow the ascending riverbank. A fallen tree comes into view just around the bend, and Dean points toward it.

“There’s our bridge.”

“We could probably just cross in the water, it looks pretty shallow here,” Castiel tells him, but Dean’s already clambering up onto the fallen tree, balancing as he makes his way across the water. “Be careful.”

Halfway across, Dean glances back over his shoulder to grin at him.

“Aw, you worried about me Ca-- _whoa_!” Dean throws his arms out to the side and teeters back and forth a few times before managing to right himself on the slippery wood. He feels his cheeks burning. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, but you probably thought it.”

Castiel doesn’t reply, and Dean takes an unsteady step forward and almost slips again. He swears under his breath and looks for a safe place to step. Jumping down is just asking for a sprained ankle.

“Damn thing didn’t look so mossy from the end,” he mutters.

“Are you stuck?”

“No.”

It’s a bold-faced lie, but Dean’s determined. He shuffles forward and stumbles a third time, this time toppling forward to land roughly on hands and knees. Leaning his forehead against the damp wood, he groans and lets his legs hang over either side.

“Dammit.”

“Dean? Are you alright?”

Tilting his head to look over the edge of the tree, he sees Castiel standing right below him, not quite knee deep in slow-moving water. His head is roughly level with the bottom of the log, and he squints against the sunlight.

“Okay, so maybe crossing on the log was a terrible idea,” Dean admits.

“It wasn’t a _terrible_ idea,” Castiel says, his nose scrunching a little as he smiles. “But not the best one, either.” He touches Dean’s shin. “Here, climb onto my shoulders. I’ll carry you the rest of the way.”

Dean narrows his eyes.

“Cas, I’m not exactly light.”

“Are you saying I’m too weak to carry you?” Castiel asks with a raised brow, but there’s an amused tilt to his mouth. “I’ll have you know I’m in excellent shape.”

“Won’t argue with that,” Dean mutters, and grins when Castiel flushes at the words.

“Just let me put the rucksack down.”

While Dean waits, Castiel walks the rest of the way across the river to dump the bag on the bank before slowly moving back, stepping carefully on the slippery rocks under the surface.

“You sure this is a good idea?”

“Positive. I know the right way, now.”

Climbing down is awkward as hell, but Dean manages, leaving one hand against the log for a moment while Castiel adjusts to his weight. When he reaches up to hold onto Dean’s knees, Dean tries not to read into the way he briefly squeezes them.

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. His voice comes out a little rough, and he clears his throat and repeats his reply. “I’m good.”

The water splashes as he goes, and looking down, Dean notices for the first time that he’s taken off his shoes and rolled his pants up to his knees

“Aren’t your toes freezing?” he asks.

“No more than yours must be,” Castiel tells him.

He’s got a point, and once they’ve climbed up the rocks and settled down, Dean works his boots off before pouring the water out. He spreads his wet socks out in a patch of sunshine before looking for the most shade he can find.

Even under the dappled shade, the spring sun is hot, and Dean flaps his t-shirt under the jacket. He’s glad he made the decision to change out of his flannel, but he’s still sweating.

“Y’know, as far as time machines go, this jacket is proving to be kind of a pain in the ass. Your Polish friend couldn’t’ve magicked up a time-travelling t-shirt? You think it’d still work if I unpicked the sleeves?”

Castiel narrows his eyes, and Dean raises his hands.

“Fine, fine, the sleeves stay.”

With a satisfied quirk to his lips, Castiel opens the bag he’d been carrying and hands Dean an army-green canteen while he unpacks the food. A glass dish of lasagne, and something wrapped in a kitchen towel that Dean’s nose tells him is garlic bread.

“You’ve been cooking up a storm, there,” Dean says before taking a deep pull of water.

“I made it while you were getting changed.”

“You made all this this morning? Even with the time difference, that was only like… an hour.”

“It was an hour and forty minutes,” Castiel corrects him, and pulls out a third dish--a salad with olives and tomatoes.

“Really? I thought I was faster than that.”

“Well, it gave me time to prepare all this, so don’t feel too bad about it.” From the bottom of the bag, Castiel produces a couple of plates and some silverware. “Let’s eat.”

Dean doesn’t need to be told twice. He digs in, scooping a generous helping of the lasagne and a polite helping of the salad onto his plate before taking the chunk of bread Castiel offers him. His eyes roll back with the first bite, and he can’t suppress a moan when he tastes the rest.

“Cas, are you _sure_ you’re a pilot? Because this is, like… restaurant quality. And I mean a _good_ restaurant. The kind I you take a date to.”

“You like it?”

“Usually salad practically gives me hives, but this has converted me.”

Castiel smiles, pleased.

“I’m glad you’ve seen the light.”

With a snort, Dean returns to his lunch, and they’re quiet for a while, just enjoying the soft susurrus of the river and the warm, dappled sunshine. Dean’s stretched back, leaning on his elbows with his eyes closed when Castiel speaks again.

“I used to come out here a lot as a child,” he says, and Dean opens his eyes to look over at him. “I grew up in Decatur, just west of the lake. My… I think my parents are still there.”

“Not your brothers?”

Castiel shakes his head.

“They’re both in Chicago.”

Looking out over the water, Castiel’s lips turn up in a nostalgic smile.

“We used to hike out here together. All four of us. Hael always wanted to try to bring tadpoles home, but Michael--”

His voice cracks a little on his brother’s name, and Dean sits up to shift closer to him, bumping their shoulders together. Castiel leans into the touch and takes a breath.

“Well, he always was just like our father. But even with the arguments, I always loved being out here. The trees, the river, the flowers… I used to think about this place when I first shipped out. When I had occasion to close my eyes, I’d think about coming back here and sitting in the sunshine. Watching the bees in spring.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No,” Castiel says. “I haven’t set foot in any forest at all since I was in Poland.”

It’s the first time he’s brought up the war without prompting, and Dean takes it in stride, wary of asking any questions in case Castiel stops talking. He looks over at him and waits for him to go on.

“It was beautiful there. I hated how beautiful it was. The things that were happening, that I had to take part in… the lives lost. There was so much horror, but the forest was breathtaking.”

“You felt guilty for noticing,” Dean guesses.

Castiel hums in agreement, picking up a stone and weighing it in his palm.

“It was the same where I was, sometimes,” Dean says quietly. “The mountains in Iraq, sometimes it felt like I was looking at a painting, y’know? And then the moment would pass, and I’d feel sick to my stomach.”

***

It’s nearing nightfall when they arrive back in Normal, and after Castiel has parked the Zephyr he looks over at Dean with a smile.

“I enjoyed that a lot,” he says.

“Me, too,” Dean grins. “Best day I’ve had in years.”

“It doesn’t have to be over,” Castiel tells him. “We could get a drink?”

The building Castiel leads Dean toward is one he’s been into before. It sits across the street from Needle and Thread, and in Dean’s time the exterior is painted a cheerful shade of purple. Now, the brick walls are their original red, and in the window where Dean’s accustomed to seeing a sign offering a free conditioning treatment if you get your hair cut on your birthday, there’s nothing but an American flag.

Castiel pushes open the door, and Dean gets a whiff of beer and cigarettes. Castiel looks over at him as he holds the door, waiting for Dean to head inside. He raises an eyebrow in question. Dean shakes his head.

“This is a salon,” he says, finally stepping through the door. Inside, it’s hazy with smoke. On a narrow stage at the rear, a trio of musicians stand close together, the double-bass player plucking out the notes of something fast and energetic as Dean and Castiel make their way toward the bar. “In… um. In 2008. It’s not a bar. It’s a hair salon with a manicurist in the back. My friend Charlie is dating one of the stylists.”

“We’re lucky it’s not 2008 then. I need malt liquor and I need it now.”

Beside them, a woman with expertly curled hair and a form-fitting polka-dot dress frowns in confusion at their conversation. Dean smiles at her awkwardly and she turns away just as the bartender arrives in front of Dean.

“What’ll it be?”

Dean gestures to himself and Castiel.

“Whisky for me and my friend, here,” he says. His hand goes to his pocket before it occurs to him that his credit card isn’t exactly going to work. Castiel seems to notice the pause, and he leans past him to pay the barman. “Thanks, Cas.”

“It’s alright.”

The man on stage leans heavy against the microphone stand, grinning as his voice drips like honey through the crackling speakers, and Dean swirls the whisky around in his glass. It’s hot in the bar, smoke thick and sickly sweet with cloves. He’d forgotten how awful it could get in enclosed spaces before the indoor smoking ban. He wonders how people stand it.

“You want to sit?” Castiel asks, and Dean nods, pushing away from the bar and following him toward a booth on the wall. Castiel’s eyes look bright as he sips at his drink.

“I don’t come here very often,” he says after a moment.

“Shouldn’t you wait for me to use a line on you before you respond to it?”

He knows flirting with Castiel is a terrible idea, but he just can’t seem to help himself. Castiel frowns, clearly not parsing Dean’s meaning right away, and Dean sighs with mock offence.

“Struck out on my first swing.”

“I wasn’t aware you planned to swing in the first place,” Castiel says after a moment, and Dean lets out a surprised laugh.

“Wasn’t planning to,” he says with a wink. “But I’d be lying if I said you weren’t my type.”

Castiel pales, looking all around, and Dean feels a sudden rush of panic. _It’s the forties_ , he reminds himself. _Show some goddamn self preservation._

“Shit, sorry. Forget I said that.”

With a sigh of relief, Castiel looks back at him, apparently satisfied that nobody overheard. His tongue darts out over his lower lip. Dean can’t help but track the motion, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Castiel. When he meets his eyes again there’s a hopeful kind of look in them. Something dark and anticipatory.

“Honestly?” Castiel says quietly before he drains his glass and returns it to the table with a hollow clink. “I’d rather not.”

____

The apartment is dimly lit, and Castiel ushers Dean inside with some trepidation. Even the whisky-warmth still spreading slowly through his chest is not enough to quell the trembling in his hands.

He moves ahead, dropping to a knee to slide a record from it’s sleeve. He blows invisible dust from its surface before he sets it on the turntable, and the low crackle of the speakers is overlapped by the rhythmic piano of a blues song.

“Big Bill Broonzy,” Castiel says as he rises, anticipating the question on the tip of Dean’s tongue.

“It’s good,” Dean says.

“I know.”

Castiel can feel every inch that separates them. The air hums with music. Dean’s fingertips find Castiel’s in the dark, sliding over his knuckles. His thumb traces Castiel’s, and Castiel sucks in a breath.

Dean is close, then closer, the toes of his shoes bumping against Castiel’s. Their fingers curl loosely together, and Dean lifts his other hand to Castiel’s waist. His touch, light but warm through the cotton of his shirt, makes Castiel’s stomach jump and flutter.

“Is this--” Dean starts. Castiel nods before he can get any further, mirroring Dean’s hand with his own. Dean’s side is firm beneath his palm. His breath tickles over Castiel’s lips.

“I can’t dance,” Dean says quietly as he rocks slightly forward and then back on his heel, and despite his nerves, despite the gravity of the moment, Castiel can’t help but laugh. The sound is strange to his own ears. Breathless and giddy.

“Neither can I.”

They dance anyway, a swaying shuffle, and Castiel’s heart pounds hard as they shift closer together. When he’s finally pressed to Dean from hip to chest, the thin stubble of his jaw catching against the same on Dean’s cheek, he takes a long, deep breath and releases it, squeezing Dean’s hand in his own.

Dean pulls back slightly, searching Castiel’s face with intensity, and whatever he was looking for must be there in spades, because between one moment and the next his hand lifts from Castiel’s waist to curl over his jaw, and Castiel is lost in the warmth of their lips pressed together. At last. _At last._

They’re not really dancing anymore; just rocking together, rhythmic and slow as heat builds between them. Castiel is breathless and aching, his whole body begging for him to get closer, feel more. He parts his lips in a sigh, and Dean’s tongue teases him to gasping.

It’s heaven until Dean lets out a trembling sound and tilts his mouth away, leaning his forehead to Castiel’s as he catches his breath.

“This is a terrible idea,” he says, the words so quiet that Castiel can almost pretend he didn’t hear them. He’s tempted to do just that. Instead he sighs.

“You’re probably right.”

He’s _definitely_ right, Castiel knows. This could never be anything real, anything lasting, no matter how much he craves it. Still, he tilts his cheek into Dean’s palm, relishing it for as long as he can before he meets Dean’s eyes. Wide and green, and sad. So much sadder than Castiel would have expected.

Dean’s thumb traces over his jaw.

“Close your eyes.”

Castiel does. This time, the touch of his lips is brief and soft, and his hand skims down over Castiel’s chest before he pulls away. When Castiel opens his eyes again, he’s alone.

____

The rhythmic hum of the sewing machine is almost hypnotic, and Dean lets it lull him into a state of calm in which thought becomes all but non-existent.

“Alright, what gives,” Charlie says.

“Hmm?”

“You’ve been all distracted and mopey for days.”

Dean’s barely opened his mouth to deny it, but Charlie levels him with a judgemental brow before he can tell her a single word. There’s no use. He sighs.

“So… alright. I maybe met someone.”

“Ooooh,” she says, eyes lighting up as she rests her chin on her fists. “When did this happen?”

“Good question,” he says, then huffs out a laugh. “Last week, kinda. But... I don’t know. I really like him, Charlie. More than I’ve liked anyone in a long time, y’know? But there’s… complications.”

“What does he do? Where’s he from?”

“He’s a pilot-- a military pilot. And he’s from… well. Here, actually.”

“Single?”

“Yeah.”

“Into guys?”

“Yeah.”

“Into _you_?”

“Yeah,” Dean nods, hating that he can feel himself blushing. “I mean, we kissed, and it seemed like he wanted to do it again, so... yeah. I think so.”

“So… sorry, why exactly are you miserable? Are you just Deaning all over a good thing for no reason?”

Dean wrinkles his nose.

“Don’t use my name as a verb.”

“Stop giving me reasons to.”

Groaning, Dean rests his head in his hands.

“I’m not _Deaning_. There are legitimate complications, Charlie.”

“Which are?”

Chewing on his lip, Dean casts around for a good explanation.

“Bad timing,” he says, mentally bumping his own fist for the pun before it makes him miserable again.

“He’s going on active duty?”

“Nah,” Dean says stupidly, immediately wishing he’d taken the out.

“Then what?”

“Fuck. Charlie, it’s… you won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

Dean huffs. _What the hell_ , he thinks.

“It’s Castiel.”

She narrows her eyes.

“Castiel.”

“Yeah.”

“The missing World War Two pilot who’d be, like... ninety if he even turned up alive right now? _That_ Castiel?”

“Uhuh.”

“You got a thing for old dudes all of a sudden, or--?”

“Last week I traveled back in time and met him in 1945.”

If Charlie manages to narrow her eyes any further, they’re going to disappear.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so.”

“I did,” Dean points out, then sighs. Pulling out his cell phone, he drops it on the table between them. “But you’re determined, so take a look. I took some pictures.”

“Did you honestly just give me free reign to go through your photos?”

“There’s nothing incriminating in there.”

Charlie gives him a doubtful look, humming something that sounds suspiciously like Kenny Loggins _Danger Zone_ under her breath as she reaches for his cell.

Dean rolls his eyes, then blanches.

“Um... actually. Maybe don’t scroll back too far. I had a friends-with-benefits thing with this cop named Victor back in Lawrence, and uh... well, let’s just say you won’t enjoy those pictures anywhere near as much as I did.”

“Thanks for the warning,” she says.

“You’re welcome.”

“What’s your-- dude, you don’t even have a passcode on this thing.”

“Quit judging me and just look.”

Charlie sighs, but does as he asked, thumbing the screen until the most recent pictures appear. She frowns, squinting at the picture, before looking back at Dean.

“Your photoshop skills have improved,” she says.

“Not photoshop.”

“So, what--he’s Castiel’s grandson?”

“Nope.”

“Dean, you’re never gonna convince me that you time traveled.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

He gets to his feet.

“C’mon,” he says. “I’ll prove it.”

“How?”

He leads her up into the attic, then points toward the trunk of records.

“Pick one,” he says.

Frowning at him, she takes a step forward and pulls out a record. Glenn Miller.

“Give me a word.”

“What word?” Charlie frowns at him. “Why?”

“Just, pick a word.”

“I have _Danger Zone_ stuck in my head. I can’t think of anything.”

“Danger Zone it is. Take it downstairs and wait in the living room.”

“Dean, what are you--”

“Just do it. I’ll be right behind you. And don’t look at the record until I say.”

___

The attic is pitch dark after he slips the jacket on, and Dean carefully lowers the ladder from its hatch. It’s only when he feels a sinking disappointment at the sound of Castiel snoring that he admits to himself that he’d been hoping Castiel would happen to be in the attic when he appeared.

On the landing, Dean pauses to listen for a moment.

He’s so tempted to knock on the door, to wake Castiel and figure out a way to make this work, but it would be reckless on an enormous scale. Even being here now is reckless. Coming back at all was a mistake.

 _Focus_ , he thinks, and heads for Castiel’s vinyl collection.

Slowly, he flips through the records until he finds the one Charlie picked, and he slides it from the sleeve.

Carefully, he writes _danger zone_ in tiny print along the inner edge of the paper label, and slips the record back into place. He’s about to leave when he hears the creak of a floorboard. The living room light flicks on before he can move.

“Dean?” Castiel’s voice is thick with sleep.

Dressed in nothing but a pair of pajama pants, he looks soft and sleep-warm. Dean is powerless to stop himself from going to him. His hands find Castiel’s hips, sliding his palms up his sides as he pulls him close and presses his face against his throat.

“God, I missed you,” Dean tells him, and Castiel clutches him back.

“It’s been so long, I thought... I thought you weren’t...” Castiel sighs, though it sounds closer to a sob. “Ten months, Dean. I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

Closing his eyes, Dean tenses his jaw before taking a deep breath.

“I didn’t plan it,” he admits. “It was my friend, Charlie. She didn’t believe me when I told her about meeting you, so I was leaving a message to prove it. I’m... shit, Cas. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”

Castiel’s whole body stiffens in Dean’s arms, pulling away, and it breaks Dean’s heart.

“You didn’t want to see me.”

“It’s not that.”

“No, it’s alright. I understand.”

“No, I-- dammit, Cas, I wanted to see you. I’ve nearly come back every day since I left. But...”

“This is untenable,” Castiel supplies, and Dean nods.

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Did you leave your message?”

Dean gestures back toward the records.

“Yeah. In my time, these records are all up in the attic in the same chest your jacket was in. Just wrote a note for Charlie on one of them to prove I’m not crazy.”

“Couldn’t you have shown her the picture you took?”

“I did. She just thought it was photoshop.”

Castiel squints at him, tilting his head to one side, and Dean’s knees go a little weak.

“Uh, a manipulated image?” Dean supplies. “She thought it was fake.”

“Oh.”

Dean looks toward the landing. “I should go.”

“Wait,” Castiel says, pulling him back, and Dean goes willingly, clutching his arm as Castiel kisses him deeply, one hand curled into the hair at his nape. He pulls back, just slightly, to speak. “Just... can you wait a moment?”

“Yeah.”

Castiel kisses him again before stepping away. He holds up a finger.

“One moment. Don’t leave.”

“I’ll wait.”

Castiel holds his gaze for a few seconds, and Dean gives him a shaky smile.

“I promise.”

With a nod, Castiel turns and hurries into his bedroom. He returns a few moments later with a camera in his hands. It whirs as he winds the film.

“I regretted not taking a picture last time,” Castiel tells him. “I want to remember you.”

Sliding his hand to Castiel’s cheek, Dean steps close and kisses him. The camera presses uncomfortably into his stomach.

“Stand over there,” Castiel tells him, pointing toward the wall, and Dean shakes his head.

“Together,” he says, and moves to stand behind him, wrapping one arm around his waist as he touches Castiel’s wrist with the other, his chin resting on Castiel’s shoulder. He presses a light kiss to his neck. “Okay?”

Castiel simply nods and raises the camera, stretching his arms out as far as he can before he snaps a picture. The flash is blinding, and Dean blinks against the spotty vision, pressing his lips against Castiel’s neck. The flash goes off again as he does.

“That’s gonna be a good angle,” Dean jokes, and tightens his arms around Castiel when he feels him laugh. Castiel takes a third picture. Dean’s chest aches. _I don’t wanna lose this_ , he thinks. _I don’t wanna give this up._

“Stay a little longer?” Castiel asks him after a moment, his voice quiet, and Dean can’t bring himself to say no. He doesn’t want to say no.

“Yeah,” he says, and presses a kiss behind his ear. “Let’s go get a drink.”

***

It’s quiet at the bar this time, and they take a booth near the stage. A man in an ill-fitting suit is sitting at the piano, picking out a slow tune on the keys, and Dean can’t help but wonder if he’s an official musician or just a drunk who noticed the piano stool was unclaimed.

As last time, a haze of smoke fills the dimly lit room. It filters the light, giving everything a dreamlike quality that only serves to remind Dean how fleeting this night is. When Castiel drops onto the bench opposite him and slides over Dean’s drink, Dean stretches a leg out to rest their feet side by side. He wishes he could take Castiel’s hand. He hates that he can’t. It’s his own fault that he can’t.

Suggesting they come to the bar was mostly to stop himself from kissing Castiel more than he already had. Coming back this time was supposed to be for proof--nothing more. Instead, as he stood in Castiel’s living room, wrapped around him, he could feel himself wanting to stay.

The thought of leaving again puts a lump in his throat. Letting himself touch Castiel, kiss him… it made the whole thing worse.

“I dreamed of the last time you were here,” Castiel tells him over his glass, lifting it to his lips before he speaks again. “Over and over, a different ending each time. I thought it would stop after a few weeks, but… even tonight, I was dreaming of you.”

“You were?”

“Mm.”

Castiel takes another sip and puts his glass down.

“Sorry I woke you,” Dean says.

“I’m not.”

They don’t talk a lot after that, just sit together, listening to the jangling piano and drinking their whiskey.

“Will you walk me home?”

“‘Course I will.”

As soon as they get back to the apartment, Dean finds himself in exactly the same position he’d suggested the bar as an escape from. He can’t bring himself to complain.

Letting go of him is almost impossible, but when he does Castiel takes his hand. He doesn’t say a word; just leads Dean across the landing and into his bedroom. Dean hesitates at the door, and Castiel takes a shaky breath before finally meeting his eye.

“Just stay until I fall asleep.”

“Yeah,” Dean smiles, slipping his fingers through Castiel’s hair. “I will.”

***

Sleep doesn’t come easily. He’s still wide awake after an hour, running his fingertips over Dean’s chest as he lays curled against him. Dean drops a soft kiss to the crown of his head.

“Can’t sleep?” Dean asks, and Castiel sighs.

“If I sleep, I’ll miss out on this.”

He flattens his palm over Dean’s heart, tilting his head up, toward Dean, and is rewarded with another kiss.

“If this is making things more difficult--” Dean starts, and Castiel shakes his head before Dean can get any further.

“Maybe just... talk to me a little.”

“About what?”

“Whatever you’re thinking about.”

“I’ve actually, um... I’ve been trying to figure something out,” Dean says, shuffling down the bed and laying on his side to face Castiel across the pillow. “About this whole...”

“Magic jacket?” Castiel asks, and Dean’s mouth lifts at the edges, his eyes warm.

“I just can’t figure out that first day. Why did it take me to you _then_? I mean... I know why it took me to you, because I was thinking about how I wished we’d known each other, but why _that_ day? I’d been thinking about you as a soldier, so I can’t work out why it didn’t drop me into a warzone.”

Castiel lifts his brow.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Dean adds.

For a long moment, Castiel is thoughtful, spreading his fingers against Dean’s before dragging them to the center of his palm and back again. Dean waits, patient.

“I was lonely,” Castiel says eventually. “That day... if you’ll remember, I was cooking when you arrived.”

“Steak,” Dean says.

“Mmhmm. Steak and broad beans. Just before I heard you, I was... craving someone’s company. Since I’d returned home from Poland, I hadn’t seen anyone. I’ve never really made friends easily, and of the three I’d had before the war... well, the only one still alive was Daphne, and she’d moved to Colorado. It had been months since I’d seen anyone I could be myself with.”

He thinks back to that day, remembers dropping a single-serving worth of broad beans into the saucepan, and wondering if he would ever find someone to share his life with. He’d have been happy enough with Daphne, even if their marriage would have been only for show. Just having someone to share his evening meals with would have been enough.

As it was, he’d felt himself sinking into a depression. With no family left to speak of--his most recent argument with his uncle Marv had been a big one--and nobody who knew him as more than a passing acquaintance, he’d lacked even the most basic human contact for months. Before Dean, he couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged him.

“I knew there wasn’t a lot of hope for someone like me,” he goes on. “But I was longing for a chance anyway. So I might not have been thinking of you, but I was thinking of someone. I suppose that was enough to act as a... a beacon for you.”

When Castiel lifts his gaze back to Dean’s face, he’s taken aback by the expression on his face. Despair just as deep as what Castiel had been feeling on the day he was speaking of. He lifts his hand, brushing his thumb over Dean’s lips.

“I’m sorry, Cas.”

“Don’t be. You were a beacon for me, too,” he smiles, and kisses Dean when he shakily returns it.

____

The morning sun is blinding, and Castiel doesn’t even have a second of consciousness before he remembers the previous night. Lying on his back, he stares at the ceiling and tries not to think about how much he’d hoped Dean would still be here.

 _He was never going to stay_ , he tells himself, and pushes out of bed, shuffling to the closet and pulling the doors wide. It would have been unreasonable to ask him to. Maybe even cruel.

The flight jacket is the first thing his eyes fall upon, and he reaches out to touch the red thread. He’s almost certain that if he were to complete the circle now it would bring him to Dean, but worries that if he did, then Dean would not have been able to do it in the first place. They may never have met. The paradox gives him a headache to think of, and he sighs as he closes the closet.

It’s not until the following evening, as he sits in the kitchen eating a bland meal he can barely taste and looks through the freshly developed photographs he collected from the drugstore that day, that his thoughts fall on his small collection of records and he has an idea.

Dumping the bowl of noodles on the table, he drops to his knees in front of the shelf and pulls the records out one by one, inspecting each closely before he finally finds Dean’s neat handwriting on the inner label of his Glenn Miller album.

He almost writes _please_ _come back to me_ underneath, but he fears that it wouldn’t be enough. He needs to tell Dean _why_ he wants him to come back; needs to give him all the facts before he can expect him to return.

He paces around the apartment, wearing down the carpet in his bedroom, before he stops and looks down. Dean still has the same carpet, he remembers. In sixty years, it has never been pulled up.

He feels foolish for doing so, but he writes Dean a letter.

He has to start over multiple times, discarded drafts piling up in his wastepaper basket every time he accidentally says too much, but finally he’s satisfied. He seals the letter in an envelope, pries up the corner of the carpet with a tire iron, wedges the envelope underneath, then carefully nails it back down.

All he can do now is wait.


	5. Chapter 5

Charlie is just settling down onto the couch when Dean walks into the living room, and she looks up at him with a raised brow. It’s only been a few seconds for her. The thought is absurd, but in light of everything else, Dean’s not wasting too much time being thrown by it.

“Look at the record,” he tells her as he flops down beside her, and she wrinkles her nose.

“Why do you smell like booze and cigarettes all of a sudden?”

“Just look at the record.”

She narrows her eyes, but does as he says. As soon as she notices the faded handwriting, her mouth falls open.

“What the frakk-- Dean. _Dean_. What-- how did you-- I was holding this the entire time.”

“Told you. Time travel.”

She stares up at him, blinking furiously, and Dean’s shocked to see her eyes are wet.

“Dude, are you crying?”

“Shut up, I’m freaked out. I can’t help what my eyes do. How--”

“I went back,” Dean says with a shrug.

“Just now? Wait, is that why you smell like a smoker’s lounge?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“Magic jacket,” Dean says with a shrug. “I’ve honestly got no idea how it works, but... that’s the gist.”

Returning her focus to the record in her hands, she wipes at her eyes and looks at it more closely.

“What’s with the other bit?” she asks after a moment.

“What other bit?”

“Here,” she points, and he steps closer to see. “You put _Danger Zone_ , like I said, but what does _bedroom_ _carpet_ have to do with anything?”

Dean’s breath catches, and he hurries into his room. He starts at the corner closest to the door, prying the carpet up from the floorboards. There’s nothing there.

“Dean, what are you doing?”

Dean doesn’t answer, just darts over to the next corner. Something rustles as he lifts the edge, and when his eyes land on an old, yellowed envelope, he can’t help but laugh.

“What is it?” Charlie asks, and he holds it up to show her.

“Pretty sure it’s a letter from Cas.”

Charlie just stares at him.

“Holy shit.”

Dean rips the envelope open, and a photograph falls out. Dean stares at the black and white picture of himself kissing Castiel’s neck, and feels his own eyes water at the sight. For him, not even five minutes have passed since he left.

He grazes his fingertips over the image before placing it carefully on the floor beside him, and reads.

_D--_

_You should know, before anything else, that I am not an easy man to care for._

_I say this not in self-deprecation, but in honesty. I am stubborn and solitary, and my rare attempts at social interaction tend to be disastrous. Usually, this suits me just fine._

_I’ve told you of my profoundly unpleasant uncle, but I did not tell you that as of my eighteenth birthday he took it upon himself to pair me with every eligible woman he came into contact with. As a result, I spent years in the unfortunate position of taking countless ladies out under the guise of romancing them, when I had absolutely no desire to do so._

_Most became disinterested quickly when they realized I held little interest in them beyond friendship. One stayed with me for a number of months despite my best efforts to dissuade her, and we were to be married before the war._

_It wasn’t until the week before the wedding that she came to me in tears, confessing that she could not in good conscience lie in a house of God. She told me that though she cared for me she could not love me, and knew that I could not love her for the very same reasons._

_I confess, in the years since you and I met--years which to you must seem mere weeks--I have wished I could have felt for her as I do for you. I have tried to convince myself that my feelings could be redirected._

_Before your last two visits, I had almost managed to believe the lie, but oh! Your kiss!_

_Your lips were not the first I ever felt pressed to mine, but they were they first I truly wanted. The first I longed for as soon as they pulled away. I craved them immediately and crave them still, crave them as I crave your hands and your eyes upon me._

_I can count on one hand the people who have inspired romantic feeling in me; even less the number who have inspired anything approaching concupiscence._

_Though I do not wish to be crude, you have inspired both--and I cannot overstate the rarity of such a reaction._

_So I ask you this now, having told you all I can that might make you refuse: please come back. Come back and kiss me again. Kiss me until it ceases to be a novel experience, and then kiss me again._

_The days I have spent with you, short as they may seem, have been the best of my life. I need more of them. I want more of them._

_Of course I am aware that there are obstacles we would face going forward. Some seem insurmountable, but then so did the hell of war, and even if we are scarred we both survived._

_I don’t have any answers to the question of how we could make this work, but if you come back, I am certain we could find those answers together._

_If this is to be goodbye, then know I kept you in my heart._

_Always,_

_\-- C_

Charlie lets out a heavy breath.

“Wow,” she croaks, and Dean looks back at her where she’s crouched behind him. “I guess you’re not on your own.” 

“Yeah,” Dean nods, and looks back at the letter in his hand. He wipes at his eyes. “I guess not.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I don’t know.”

“The hell do you mean, you don’t know? That’s the most romantic crap I’ve ever seen. I kinda feel guilty for reading it.”

“I just... I want to go back, but... Charlie, what’s the point? We’re literally separated by sixty years. It’s not...”

“What?”

“Practical,” he finishes, and she scrunches up her nose at him.

“So what?”

“So it’s only gonna end in tears,” Dean says.

“It’s ending in tears right now,” she points out, and Dean sniffs, wiping his eyes again as he looks away. “you’re just going to ignore this? Never see him again?”

“I don’t know, Charlie.”

“You want my advice?”

“Does it matter if I say no?”

“No.”

“Then fine. Hit me.”

“Whether you’re willing to try or not, you’ve gotta see him one more time. Even if it’s just to say a real goodbye. Look at that letter, Dean. Read between the lines. Can’t you see what he’s telling you?”

Dean stares down at it and feels his whole body ache.

“I think...”

“Yeah?”

“I need to think about this,” Dean says.

He doesn’t even need to tell her he needs to be alone; Charlie hugs him tightly and drops a noisy kiss to the side of his head.

“Call me if you need anything, okay?”

“Yeah,” Dean nods. “Thanks, Char.”

Dean sits on his bedroom floor for almost an hour after she leaves before he remembers how long that translates to for Castiel, and the thought of him spending even another minute agonizing over Dean finding the letter has him on his feet and racing to grab the jacket.

It’s not until he has it in his hands that he pauses for a breath and comes to a decision.

***

It’s been three days since Castiel woke up alone, and though he’s been trying to focus on other things, he’s been all but useless. It’s only when he goes to make something for a late lunch that he realizes the pantry is empty, and he drags himself downstairs and across to the general store. The proprietor, a woman named Nora, looks up at him with a smile when he walks inside.

He buys bread and rice and tinned tomato soup, the thought of cooking anything more involved for himself to eat alone making him think of Dean again, and avoids the temptation to buy another packet of cigarettes. Since Dean told him about what happened--what _will_ _happen_ \--to Henry, he’s cut back to only one a day. Even then, he’s been butting it out when it’s only halfway done.

He carries everything to the counter, and half-listens as Nora apologizes for having no available shifts for him in the coming week.

“It’s alright,” he assures her, and heads back home.

Halfway up the stairs, his skin prickles. He’s not sure what to call it--a sixth sense, intuition--but he can feel Dean’s presence. By the time he opens the door, his hands are trembling.

Dean is waiting in the middle of the living room. 

Words won’t come. Castiel is fairly certain that his heart is in his throat.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says, and Castiel drops the paper bag of groceries on the floor, finally recovering enough to walk. Dean meets him in the middle, pulling him close, and for a while they just hold one another. Quiet and warm.

“You came back,” Castiel says when his voice starts working, and Dean squeezes him a little tighter.

“I found your letter,” Dean tells him. “I had to. I, um... what you said about, um. About kissing me. About...”

“Your lips, your hands, your eyes,” Castiel says, and Dean’s cheeks grow pink.

“Yeah,” Dean nods. “All that. It’s the same for me. But...”

In the space of a second, Castiel’s heart soars and plummets. 

“Hey, no-- wait,” Dean says, holding fast to Castiel’s hands to keep him from running away. “I want to be with you, Cas. But I don’t know how we can. You said it yourself, it’s an untenable situation. I can’t just stay here, man. I’ve got friends, family, a job back in my time. But every time I go home, we lose whole days. Weeks. Months. What if something happens to the jacket, or it just stops working? What if... hell, what if I get stuck on jury duty for a month and you spend five years here with no idea where I’ve gone? I can’t do that to you. I won’t do that to you.”

“So you only came back to say goodbye,” Castiel says, his eyes stinging, a lump in his throat, and Dean stares back at him, stricken.

“I... shit, I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s the smart thing to do, right?”

He sounds desperate, and Castiel feels the same.

“I don’t care if it’s the smart thing. I want to be selfish. I want to be foolish and reckless and--”

Dean kisses him.

“Will you stay the night?” Castiel asks.

“If you want me to.”

Castiel doesn’t know how there can be any doubt, but somehow Dean still looks worried.

“I want you to. Even if it’s just tonight, I want you to.”

***

The air feels charged when they step into the bedroom; like lightning preparing to strike. The moment Dean slips his arms around Castiel’s waist and presses his lips to the back of his neck, Castiel understands why. Dean’s touch is electric.

Turning in his hold, Castiel drapes his arms around Dean’s shoulders and kisses him how he should have before. Deeply. Hungrily. He nips at his lower lip, tugging it between his teeth, and Dean groans under his breath. The sound makes Castiel feel powerful. More confident, suddenly, than he ever thought he’d be in this situation.

“Come to bed,” he hears himself saying, and Dean does as he asks, following him without once breaking contact. 

The mattress creaks when Castiel falls back against it, louder when Dean follows. His kisses are fervent, scattered all over Castiel’s cheeks and throat, and when Dean’s thumbs press against his hips, rubbing circles on the warm skin under Castiel’s shirt, his breath hitches. He doesn’t think twice about peeling it free and flinging it away.

His pants go the same way, lost between one breathless moment and the next, and Dean touches every stretch of skin he can get his hands on.

This is already different to the other times Castiel has come close to this. Then, it had been artless fumbling, quick stress relief in brief moments of respite, the smell of gunpowder still thick in his nose as he touched and was touched by a fellow soldier who refused to kiss him and would not look him in the eye. Castiel had certainly felt _something_ then--past experience tells him that an absence of romantic interest on his part equates to an inability to become aroused in the first place--but it was all one-sided, and fleeting, and though he derived physical pleasure and release from the experience there was a sour note that he could never fully ignore.

This is different.

Dean kneads his fingers into the backs of Castiel’s thighs and presses his lips to his stomach. Lets them linger and darts his tongue over warm skin. Castiel sinks his hands into Dean’s hair, hesitant and gentle, and Dean tilts his face up to look at him before he pulls back slightly, though his hands continue trailing up and down his legs.

“You want to stop?”

The twitch of Dean’s throat when he swallows is gorgeous, and Castiel shakes his head. Wets his dry lips.

“No,” he breathes.

“You seem nervous,” Dean tells him, and Castiel laughs aloud.

“I suppose I am. Don’t let that stop you.”

Dean slips his hand over Castiel’s wrist and down to his fingers, squeezing them, encouraging Castiel to grip his hair the way he wants to. It’s only a moment before he does, and Dean ducks back down to trace kisses across his hips, to tease at his waistband. When he sinks lower still to mouth at Castiel through thin cotton, Castiel gasps and tugs at Dean’s hair.

“ _Dean_ \-- please--”

Miraculously, Dean understands exactly what he can’t seem to say, and he slides Castiel’s underwear down and away. His breath is hot against Castiel’s skin. His tongue soft when it flicks at the head of Castiel’s cock.

Castiel’s grip in his hair tightens, and Dean takes it as his cue to take him fully into his mouth. Dean sinks down, the ridges at the roof of his mouth creating an exquisite friction that no hand has ever given Castiel. It’s almost too much. Squeezing his eyes shut, Castiel musters every ounce of self control he has to keep from coming.

Dean pulls off with a wet pop, gliding a fisted hand over the spit-slick skin.

“Good?” he asks.

Castiel just laughs, delirious. Dean grins up at him, his face flushed.

“ _That_ good, huh?”

“Perfect,” Castiel gasps out, hips lifting involuntarily as if chasing Dean’s hand. “Nobody ever... I haven’t...”

“You haven’t done this before?” Dean asks, brow creasing as he slows his hand, just a little. Castiel shakes his head. “At all, or just--”

“Only hands,” Castiel tells him.

“I guess I’ll have to make this memorable, then,” Dean says, eyes bright and playful.

It’s an absurd thing to say, and Castiel means to tell him so, but then Dean’s mouth is on him again and he forgets how to speak. Warmth, building pressure low in his stomach, his groin. Castiel’s toes curl against the mattress.

“Dean, I’m--” he gasps out, scrabbling at his hair in warning, but Dean just holds on and sucks him in deeper.

When Dean makes a low, satisfied sound around him-- _he’s truly enjoying this_ , Castiel thinks wildly, _he loves this as much as I do_ \--the sensation paired with the joy of knowing Dean is content is enough to send him tumbling over the edge.

His back arches, and Dean pulls off, pumping his warm fist over Castiel as he spills. By some wonder, though Dean is still fully clothed, he looks just as blissed out as Castiel feels.

“Come here,” Castiel tells him, tugging him up, and Dean does, crawling over him and pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his throat before Castiel redirects him to his lips. Dean’s hips press into him as he shifts his weight, and when Castiel feels his denim-clad erection press against his thigh, he doesn’t hesitate to slide his hand down over Dean’s stomach.

The button of Dean’s jeans pops open easily, and Castiel works his hand inside, ignoring the way the fly digs into the back of his wrist so he can focus on the feeling of Dean’s heated skin beneath his fingers. He grazes over the head, wet with Dean’s arousal, and Dean’s whole body shudders at the sensation.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dean sighs, lips catching on Castiel’s jaw.

Suddenly, it’s not enough. He pushes at Dean’s shoulder with his free hand, flipping them over and working Dean’s jeans down and out of the way so he can see what he’s doing. The sight makes him lightheaded, his heart pounding, and though he’s just barely recovered from his own climax he feels his cock give a feeble twitch as he takes in Dean’s state.

His thighs are thick and flushed pink. Castiel wants to bite them.

For a long moment, he just looks his fill, skimming his fingertips up and down over Dean’s skin and watching, fascinated, as the teasing touch makes Dean grow visibly harder. Soon, Dean is almost writhing, and Castiel crawls over him, straddling his thigh as he kisses him again. One hand slides up over Dean’s chest in the process, and when he grazes the hard peak of a nipple Dean lets out a whine that makes Castiel lose all sense. He presses him back against the pillows, pushing two hands up under his shirt, before making a frustrated sound and wrestling it--and the jacket--free.

The room lurches. The bed drops an inch.

Castiel is too lust-drunk to notice.

***

Dean’s eyes cross when he comes, his throat bared as he gasps and digs his fingers into the pillow and Castiel’s shoulder, and Castiel thinks he’s found a new religion. Still straddling Dean’s thighs, he wipes his hand on a blanket that feels softer than usual as he moves up to kiss him.

It’s not until he pulls away and notices the dark color of the pillow Dean’s laying on that he realizes something is amiss.

Frowning, he sits up.

“Come back,” Dean murmurs, his palm sliding up Castiel’s chest and around the back of his neck. “Kiss me again.”

For a moment, the sight of Dean shirtless and flushed beneath him as he says those words is enough to keep him from figuring out what’s happened. But then he really takes in the sight. Dean. Shirtless. _Jacketless_.

The dark pillowcase. The soft blanket.

Castiel lurches away so violently that he hits the floor hard, the heels of his palms burning on the carpet. The glow of some kind of brightly-lit advertisement filters through the thin curtain, and in the dull blue light he can see all the differences in the room. The furniture. The framed print on the wall. The mirror. 

He barely has a second to panic before Dean’s wide-eyed face is peering over the edge of the bed to look at him.

“The jacket,” he breathes. “Shit. I didn’t-- I forgot. I should have stopped you, but I just… I forgot.”

Castiel can’t manage to respond. His heart is racing, and he feels moments away from screaming or being sick. Before he knows it, Dean is crouched on the floor beside him, pulling him close.

“It’s fine, Cas. I’ll just… I’ll put the jacket back on, make sure we’re touching, and that should--”

“The jacket was bringing you to me,” Castiel says, finally finding his voice. “It was bringing you to me, and I’m already here, so there’s nowhere for it to go.”

“We can try.”

Castiel nods, gripping Dean’s shoulder.

“Alright.”

“Hold on, okay?” Dean says, and Castiel nods, leaning forward until their foreheads are touching, his hands linked around the back of Dean’s neck. “Here we go.”

Castiel keeps his eyes closed as Dean slips the jacket on, and when he feels Dean still, he shuffles a little closer.

“Did it work?” he whispers, and feels his panic return anew when Dean pulls him into a tight embrace. “Dean, did it work?”

***

Dean’s clothes don’t quite fit Castiel. The jeans are too wide, and the shirt is snug on his shoulders, but they smell of Dean, and wearing them makes Castiel feel a little better. He pulls his feet up onto the couch and hugs his knees to his chest as he stares at the television.

It’s showing footage of something called the International Space Station, and watching it makes Castiel feel like the whole world has tilted on it’s axis. The bathroom door still squeaks, he thinks when he hears Dean coming back. At least something is the same.

“I set out a spare toothbrush for you on the sink,” Dean says after a moment, and Castiel turns to look up at him.

“Thank you.”

Dean just nods.

“We’re gonna figure out how to get you back home, Cas. I’ve got a plan.”

***

Charlie is half asleep when she answers her door the following morning, only one eye open to glare at Dean for his arrival.

“What are you want?” she asks him.

“You do know that wasn’t a sentence, right?”

“It’s early.”

“It’s noon.”

“On a weekend.”

“It’s Wednesday.”

She blinks at him slowly.

“Are you just gonna stand here poking holes in everything I say, or was there a point to your visit?”

“I was kinda hoping you could help me with something.”

He holds out the cup and the paper bag in his hand, and Charlie leans a little closer before she takes them.

“This pastry is from Georgio’s,” she says after a moment, and narrows her eyes. “You _hate_ going to Georgio’s.”

“Yep.”

Charlie looks at him with suspicion.

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Keep an open mind,” Dean says.

“Not filling me with confidence, there, Dean.”

Dean glances down the hallway, where he can just see Castiel’s toe poking around the corner. He clears his throat.

“C’mon out, Cas,” he calls, and Castiel peers around the wall before making his way toward them.

Charlie gapes.

“Oh my God,” she says, and looks at Dean. “ _Oh my God_.”

“Cas, Charlie, Charlie, Cas,” he says, then looks at her pointedly. “Told you I wasn’t making it up.”

“Oh my God,” Charlie says again, stepping aside to let them in. Her eyes are fixed on Castiel the whole time, and she repeats the same three words about half a dozen more times before she manages to snap out of it. “How in the hell are you here?”

“Wardrobe malfunction,” Dean offers, and Castiel tilts his head at the term before shrugging as if to say, _that about sums it up_.

“Dean tells me you’re aware of the... strange circumstances of our meeting,” Castiel says, and Charlie nods vigorously.

“I just--” she reaches out, prodding him in the chest. “Holy crap. You’re really real.”

“So it would seem,” Castiel agrees, casting a bemused look over at Dean. “I’m glad to meet you, Charlie. Dean’s told me a little about you.”

“Same here,” Charlie says. “Man, I can’t believe you’re here. So. What do you need? Fake ID, right? I can make you a--”

“We just need help to track someone down,” Dean cuts her off.

“Oh?”

“Cas didn’t come here on purpose,” Dean says. Charlie’s face falls.

“Oh.”

“As Dean said earlier,” Castiel pipes up, “it can best be described as a wardrobe malfunction.”

“So... you’re not--” Charlie cuts herself off this time, catching Dean’s downturned mouth, and shakes her head. “Okay. Cool. So who are you looking for?”

“The woman who did this,” Castiel tells her, gesturing to the red circle stitched onto his jacket. “It’s the key to all of this.”

“What’s her name?”

“Agata,” Castiel says immediately. “I don’t know her last name, but she lived in a Polish village called Sieraków during the war. Her husband was named Bartłomiej. They’d... I don’t know if they’d still be alive. But they had a daughter named Hannah.”

“Okay, that might be enough,” Charlie says, heading for her computer. She glances back over her shoulder, gesturing for them to follow. “Any idea on how to spell the guy’s name?”

Castiel spells it aloud, and Charlie gets to work. Dean wanders into her kitchen and makes them all coffee without a word, and returns to sit beside Castiel on the couch while they wait.

“Kominek,” Charlie says after a long time. “Bartłomiej and Agata Kominek. They’re both… I’m sorry, Castiel. It’s been a long time since they died. But Hannah is still alive. She’s 76 years old, living in Sycamore, just outside Chicago. She moved there with her husband in 1968.”

“That close?” Castiel asks, sitting forward, and Dean’s heart sinks when he realizes how hopeful Castiel is. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been hoping Castiel might stay. Now, he just feels like a jerk for being disappointed at the idea of Castiel returning to his own time. Plastering on a smile, he pats Castiel on the shoulder and lies through his teeth.

“That right there is luck.”

____

The drive back to the apartment takes twenty minutes, and Castiel spends most of it gazing out the window with a restless feeling in the pit of his stomach. It’s almost five in the afternoon, and though Dean offered to drive him up to Sycamore now, Castiel told him they should wait until the morning. If they left now, it would be early evening by the time they arrived, and he doesn’t want to spring such a shock on an old woman when she’d likely be preparing for bed.

The thought of Hannah as an old woman is jarring, and he keeps circling it as they drive. He’s missed so much. The cars they pass on the street are strangely shaped, and everything seems so much brighter and louder; the billboards, the shop windows, even the clothes of the people on the sidewalk.

He doesn’t realize that they’ve parked until Dean taps on the passenger window from the outside and opens the door.

“You doing okay?”

Castiel nods, unbuckling his seatbelt--such a clever invention, and one he’s surprised wasn’t thought of sooner--and climbing from the car. He can feel Dean hovering, his hand just shy of touching the small of Castiel’s back as they make their way toward the building. He finds himself wishing Dean would close the distance.

He stops walking, and Dean bumps right into him.

“Cas?”

“What if she doesn’t know anything?” Castiel asks, staring at the ground. “What if she can’t--”

“We’ll figure it out,” Dean says.

He sounds far more confident than Castiel suspects he is, but Castiel appreciates the lie anyway.

“Are you sure you don’t want to drive up there tonight?” Dean asks again. “We could get a room at a motel or something. Head over to her house first thing in the morning.”

“No,” Castiel says. “I know I’m just putting off the inevitable, but I need to work up to it. She was only a child when I saw her, and now... she’s a grandmother. It’s unfathomable. I can’t--”

His breath catches, hitching loud, and Dean presses a warm palm to the center of his back, rubbing soothing circles as he pulls Castiel to his chest. His voice is soft in Castiel’s ear.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. We’ll figure it all out, okay?”

“Okay.”

Dean pulls back a little to look him in the eye, and Castiel tries to steady himself. He takes a long breath and pushes it out in a deep sigh.

“Okay,” he repeats.

“Let’s get inside,” Dean says, stepping back and tugging lightly on Castiel’s arm to lead him toward the door. “I’ll make dinner. We can just tune all this out and watch something on TV for a while.”

“We couldn’t get it here,” Castiel tells him.

“What?”

“Television. The programs don’t reach Normal. Didn’t, I mean.”

“Huh,” Dean says as he unlocks the door. “So you’ve never seen a TV?”

“Once. In a bar in Chicago a couple of months ago. It was very crowded, though, so I couldn’t really get close enough to see what was going on.” He chews the inside of his cheek for a moment, following Dean upstairs. “To be honest, I didn’t try all that hard to get a better look. It was a boxing match. Fighting for sport lost a lot of it’s appeal for me after seeing men fight for their lives overseas.”

“Well, I’ve got a whole bunch of movies we can watch. Lotta comedies, a few sappy ones that I’ll deny owning if you ever tell my brother.”

“I won’t tell him about them,” Castiel promises. “If I meet him, that is.”

“Oh, uh... I don’t know if you will. He lives pretty far away, so. I guess it all depends on what happens tomorrow.” Dean sighs before offering a smile. “But we’re not thinking about that right now, right?”

“Right.”

***

Normanby Avenue is flanked on both sides by sycamore trees, and the fallen clocks crunch under Dean’s feet when he steps from the car. Hannah’s house is set back from the road, casting a shadow over the slightly overgrown yard decorated with chipped garden gnomes and a dry terra-cotta birdbath. 

The woman who answers the door when they knock is in her seventies. As soon as her eyes fall on Castiel her hand flies to her mouth.

“Oh, Boże!” she breathes.

“Hello, Hannah,” Castiel says. “Do you recognize me?”

“I thought,” she laughs, breathy and bright, her light eyes damp as she lowers her hand to her chest. “You look just like someone I met as a child.”

“Lieutenant Castiel Novak,” Castiel says, and her eyes widen a little as she nods.

“I always wondered what happened to him,” she says. “Are you his grandson?”

Castiel glances over at Dean, wary, and Dean realizes that neither of them thought this part of the plan through. Dean clears his throat.

“He’s even named after him, aren’t you, Cas?” he says, and Castiel nods.

“Yes.”

“Please, come in,” she steps aside, ushering them into her living room. There’s a general sense of clutter around the place, and as Hannah shuffles her way to a well-used armchair, Dean can see why. Though she still seems to have all her wits about her, she’s hunched over at the waist, and he guesses arthritis is taking it’s toll.

She’s just sat down when an embarrassed look passes over her face, and she moves to stand again.

“Would you like some tea?”

“No, don’t worry about--”

“I was about to make a pot,” she insists, and as if to confirm it, a kettle begins to whistle in the kitchen.

“Allow me,” Dean tells her, and points in the direction the sound is coming from. She nods.

“Thank you.”

It only takes him a couple of minutes to find everything, but he takes his time anyway, hoping that Castiel will find a way to bring up the reason for their visit before he heads back into the living room. When he finally carries out a tray with the teapot and some cups, he finds Castiel crouched on the floor beside her chair, her hand gripping his tightly.

For almost half an hour, he listens as Castiel tells her about that day from her childhood. About how kind her father was, how warm her mother was. How without them, he doesn’t think he would have made it back home.

Finally, he gestures toward the duffel that Dean carried in, and Dean digs the jacket out, handing it over.

“Your mother sewed this into jacket when she fixed it.”

“I remember,” Hannah says, thumb tracing the red thread. “My mother, she was _czarwonica_. A witch. A good witch,” she hurries to add, eyes wide, and they both nod. “There were still many in those days, practicing folk magic.”

“Did she ever teach you?”

“Only a little,” Hannah says. “You understand, even before the war, there was prejudice. Pagans were not looked on kindly by any side. Matka showed me how to protect myself, how to unbind, some small blessings. But only a little. Nothing was written, you see. Just taught by talking. Too much fear.”

“This was a _zagavory_ , but I don’t remember the words. It was so long ago,” she shakes her head. “So long. I remember that it meant to bring the wearer of the coat to the person who needed him most, but that’s all. There is no reason why it should have worked in this way,” she tells them. “I’ve never... none of my mother’s other zagavory came true, not like this.”

“They must have,” Dean says. “Or she wouldn’t have kept doing them.”

“No,” Hannah insists. “These are for hope, and guidance, but not for--” she claps her palm over her fist, making a solid _thwack_ as if to demonstrate the physical. “They do not work in this way.”

“They’re like prayers,” Castiel says. “They’re more to do with faith than physical reward.”

“Yes,” she says, nodding.

“But this one worked,” Dean argues. “I tied the string, and I put the coat on, and I got Deloreaned back to the forties.”

“Deloreaned?” Castiel squints, and glances at Hannah who frowns along with him.

Dean just waves his hand in the air.

“Nevermind. The point is, it worked.”

“I’m sorry,” Hannah says. “I don’t know why. But I can break it. That would probably send you back.”

“But it would be permanent, wouldn’t it? Dean wouldn’t be able to come back, and neither would I.”

“I think so, yes,” Hannah says. “I can show you how. You can do it whenever you like.”

Pushing out a heavy breath, Castiel nods.

“Show me how,” he says.

***

There’s been a lump in Dean’s throat since they left Chicago. His whole body is tense, preparing for a fight that isn’t coming. Castiel is silent in the passenger seat.

_Show me how_ , Castiel had said. _Show me how._

He wants to know how to break the spell. He wants to go back. Dean feels so selfish for his heartbreak that it makes him feel physically ill, and he tightens his grip on the steering wheel as he aims them toward Normal. By the time they’re close, only fifteen minutes from the welcoming sight of North Street, Dean realizes that he has to let Castiel go.

More than that, he has to help him. If going back is what Castiel truly wants, even if that means never seeing Dean again, Dean has to respect that. He can’t try to talk him out of it. Can’t try to convince him to stay.

The ritual Hannah described seems simple enough--a few herbs bundled together into a smudge stick and waved over the jacket while Castiel repeats a string of Polish that Dean couldn’t remember if his life depended on it--but a few of the herbs were things Dean’s never heard of before, and though Hannah assured them that they’d find most at the supermarket, one was going to take a special supplier.

_I can do that for him,_ Dean thinks, glancing over at Castiel in the dark car as he parks.

Dean almost works up the nerve to tell him so, but each time the words fizzle out before he even opens his mouth. But as difficult as it is, Dean knows he has to say _something_.

It’s not until they’ve stepped into the apartment and locked the door that he does.

“Do you--”

“Can we--” Castiel starts at the same moment, and Dean nods for him to go on. Castiel sighs. “Could we just... for tonight, can we just not think about this?”

“Sure.”

“I just want to... Dean, would you kiss me?”

Stepping close, Dean does. Castiel opens to him, tilting his chin slightly upward as he sighs into Dean’s mouth. The sound makes something swoop low in Dean’s stomach, and he slides his hands to the small of Castiel’s back, pulling him closer as he deepens the kiss.

Talking is hard, but this? This, Dean can do. If Castiel needs a distraction, Dean’s more than willing to provide it in whatever way he needs.

Pressing against him, Dean maneuvers Castiel until his back is to the wall and breaks away to press his lips against his throat, his jaw, the shell of his ear.

“Tell me what you need.”

“Just--”

Castiel’s hands rise to Dean’s chest, pushing him back slightly so he can move. His eyes aren’t as dark as Dean thought they’d be. Instead they’re _warm_ , and Dean’s heart skips a beat when Castiel closes his fists in Dean’s collar and pulls him toward the bedroom.

In the doorway, he pauses to kiss the corner of Dean’s mouth.

“Let me,” he says.

“Okay,” Dean tells him, following when Castiel pulls him further into the room. “Whatever you want, Cas.”

Still standing by the bed, Castiel undresses them both slowly, sliding fingers between buttons and gently working them free before leaning in to press his lips to Dean’s chest. His kisses are light, his hands tickling over Dean’s ribs as he pushes the shirt aside.

It’s not what Dean expected. After the stress of the past two days, and the relief Castiel must be feeling after seeing Hannah, he’d anticipated something more like desperation. He'd thought Castiel would be demanding and loud, that he'd bite and scratch and chase his release until he caught it.

This isn't that.

Castiel is touching him, everywhere he can, but it’s slow and sweet. Like Dean is something precious and Castiel is trying to love every single part of him in equal measure. Running his wide palms over Dean’s thighs, his hips, his back, Castiel steps in as close as he can, shuffling forward until he’s got one foot between Dean’s. He holds Dean close, chest to chest, and Dean can’t help but melt into him. He’s so warm. Feels safe, Dean thinks, to be this close.

Dean doesn’t know how he’s going to get past this.

He takes a shuddering breath, face turned to press against Castiel’s neck, and kisses him there. Squeezes his eyes shut and holds on and kisses him.

Against his thigh, he can feel Castiel’s cock thickening, and he pushes against him a little. Rolls his body forward so Castiel stutters out his name and pulls him back onto the bed. Leaning down, he takes advantage of their new position to scatter kisses over Castiel’s chest. When he runs his tongue over a nipple, Castiel’s hand rises to tug in his hair. Dean closes his lips over the taut flesh and sucks.

Castiel arches with the sensation, so Dean does it again, again, until Castiel pulls him back to his lips. 

They rock together as they kiss, and despite Dean’s heartache he finally feels his body catching up, cock filling out as it slides against Castiel’s. The motion is smoothed by precome, but it could be better, and Dean reaches out to his side, fumbling for the nightstand.

“What are you--” Castiel starts, his voice rougher than ever, and Dean kisses him again before he answers.

“Tube in the nightstand,” Dean tells him, and sits up to reach it better, rummaging one-handed in the drawer until he finds it. Castiel takes it from him before he can say another word, sharp eyes scanning the label quickly before he unscrews the cap and pours it into his palm.

He slicks the skin between Dean’s legs, fingertips lifting briefly to graze over his perineum, his rim, teasing light before sliding back to circle his cock. Dean’s toes curl at his touch, but when Dean reaches for Castiel to mirror the motion Castiel catches his hand, linking their fingers and squeezing.

“Let me,” he says again, and rolls them over, shifting to his side so he’s lying behind Dean. When Dean feels him slide into the tight space between his thighs, rocking slowly back and forth, he can’t help his sigh. 

“Please, Cas.”

His hand returns to circle Dean again, and he moves it in time with his hips, tight and slow as he kisses the back of Dean’s neck. Noses at his hair.

“Want you like this forever,” Castiel breathes against his skin, and Dean’s chest feels tight. He touches Castiel’s wrist as he moves his hand.

“You have me now.”

Dean feels Castiel’s open mouth pressed against his back, gasping into Dean’s skin as his movements become urgent, unmeasured. Reaching back, he grasps Castiel’s ass to keep him close. It tenses with every thrust, faster, faster, until Dean feels him lock up, body taut as he spills over Dean’s thighs.

It’s almost too much, though Dean’s still hard he feels overstimulated and lost, and it only takes a few more strokes before he’s coming, covering Castiel’s fingers as they keep on moving, milking him of every drop.

For a few moments, the afterglow drowns out the hurt, and Dean lies in the dark with Castiel warm at his back, basking in the sweet feeling of gentle fingertips trailing up to tickle, featherlight, over his stomach.

Then, it all comes back. Castiel is leaving. Castiel wants to leave.

He doesn’t mean to tense up, but something alerts Castiel to the shift in his mood, and Dean feels himself being tugged over onto his back. He closes his eyes to avoid Castiel’s gaze. It doesn’t help when he feels his thumb grazing the skin under his eye, and he tries to convince himself that it’s only wet from exertion.

“Dean? Are you alright?”

Dean forces himself to take breath, and then plasters on a smile that he hopes is convincing.

“Yeah,” he says, and grasps Castiel’s wrist. “Just happy we could have this tonight.”


	6. Chapter 6

When Castiel stretches a hand out to the other side of the bed, the sheets are cool beneath his fingers. It reminds him of the last time he woke up like this. That morning feels a lifetime away now. In a way, it is.

He goes to the window, pulling the curtains wide before climbing out onto the fire escape. A car parked across the narrow street is blaring music, what sounds like a string arrangement overlaid by a series of increasingly rapid beeps and a pounding drum beat. The sound makes his head ache. He wants a cigarette.

Instead, he breathes deeply a few times before going back inside.

There’s a note weighed down by Dean’s spare key on the kitchen table, reminding him that Dean has a couple of clients today since he had to move them from yesterday, and sitting underneath it is a weathered local map and a fifty dollar bill. __If you still wanted to check out the supermarket,__ __or for whatever you need.__

Avoiding the obscenely large amount of money Dean has left him, Castiel digs through Dean’s pantry. One peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich later, he slips the money Dean left for him into his pocket, along with the spare key, and heads for the door. 

Downstairs, he peeks through the window of the tailor shop and sees Dean measuring an elderly man for a suit. He’s smiling as he goes, and he says something that makes the old man laugh loud enough to be heard from the foyer.

The scene puts a smile on Castiel’s face, and when he steps out into the street, he feels a little lighter.

Even with his better mood, it’s still jarring to be confronted with sixty odd years of progress as soon as he steps out the door. The car with the loud music is still parked around the corner, and Castiel is glad he’s heading in the opposite direction.

The store Dean described is a few blocks away, and as he walks, he greets a few passersby, trying not to stare too much at all their strange clothes. One woman with blue hair is wearing a fitted t-shirt with the words SAVE FERRIS printed in bold across the front, and when he pauses to ask if this Ferris is ill or a prisoner of some kind, she only laughs and says, “It’s Ferris Bueller, c’mon.”

By the time he reaches the supermarket, he’s so overwhelmed by everything he’s encountered that he barely wants to go inside. His stomach rumbles, though, and he’d told Dean he would bring back something for lunch, so he steps up to the door and lets out an undignified sound when it slides open on it’s own.

Inside, he carries his plastic basket from aisle to aisle, inspecting the countless varieties of every product before making a decision and going back for what he needs. He’s amazed to find that the supermarket has almost everything he needs, and though the prices make his palms sweat--he’d thought fourteen cents for a loaf of bread was getting a little ridiculous, and now it’s edging uncomfortably close to two dollars--he tries to reassure himself with the knowledge that this is normal now. Dean expected these prices, which is why he left fifty dollars on the table. Castiel can’t recall the last time he had fifty dollars in his pocket.

When he passes a couple in the bakery section, two men walking together, one with his hand resting on the other’s lower back, he thinks he could __definitely__ get used to this. 

He wonders if perhaps this was a blessing. If being sent here thanks to his own lack of forethought when presented with the possibility of being closer to Dean was actually the gift, the blessing that Agata had promised him all those years ago.

The more he considers it, the more he believes it.

He has no-one in 1948. Though he’d told Dean once that he had other friends, they were really acquaintances. Nora, his manager at the general store, and Henry, who was little more than his landlord’s son. Though he was sure they would both note his absence, and perhaps be concerned by his abrupt disappearance, neither would miss him greatly.

As the cashier swipes his last purchase over the bright red beam of light beside the register--a contraption Castiel is determined to ask Dean about later--Castiel decides that he’s going to stay.

The crinkling bag swings from Castiel’s elbow as he walks back toward the apartment. As he walks __home__.

When he arrives, he can’t see Dean when he looks in through the shop window, so he heads upstairs to find a new note where the other had been.

__How do we still have bad timing!? Mr Jones’ car wouldn’t start, but couldn’t wait for a tow because he has a doctor’s appointment. I’m giving him a ride. I’ll be back later. If you need to call, the number’s on the pad by the phone. P.S. I found a supplier for that weird herb you need to break the spell, so let me know when you want it and I’ll order if for you. They’re only in Chicago, so it won’t take long to arrive._ _

Castiel stares at the note for a long time. After the last line, there’s a little drawing that he thinks is supposed to represent a smiling face, and the sight of it makes his chest ache. The note is so cheerful, so happily forthcoming about finding the agrimony that was the most difficult aspect of the spellbreaking ritual Hannah had given him. 

The fact that Dean was looking for the supplier at all makes Castiel’s blood run cold.

Dean wants him to break the spell.

Dean wants him to go back.

He should have realized sooner, now that he’s thinking about it. Dean had tried to end things with him the last time he came back. The time before, he hadn’t even meant to see Castiel at all.

Whatever he means to Castiel, it’s suddenly crystal clear that Castiel doesn’t mean anywhere near the same to Dean. This is worse than Balthazar. He’d prepared for heartbreak, and inflicted it on himself before he could fall too far.

This feels more like leaping from his plane and learning at the last moment that his chute has no ripcord. He’s plummeting, and there’s nothing to break his fall. Nowhere for him to turn.

Breathing deeply, Castiel puts the groceries away, picks up the map Dean left him, and looks for a bus station.

***

The apartment is quiet when Dean goes upstairs, but there’s a breeze wafting in from the bedroom window that tells him Castiel is likely sitting on the fire escape. He smiles at the thought of him there, reading a book and drinking coffee.

Something about the mental image feels like home.

He heads into the kitchen, flicking on the coffee pot and pulling out a mug before he walks back through the bedroom.

“Hey Cas, I’m making a fresh pot. You want a refill?”

There’s no reply from outside, and when he leans his head out he finds the fire escape empty.

Frowning, he turns around and walks back out onto the landing.

“Cas?”

His voice echoes.

He looks in every room, finding no trace of Castiel anywhere, and is turning in place in the kitchen when he sees the slip of paper wedged under the photo he stuck to the fridge yesterday.

__Dean,_ _

__I understand, now._ _

__Our time together was nothing short of wonderful, but it was unfair of me to ask for more. It took my coming here for me to truly realize what you meant._ _

__Knowing you has been one of few great joys in my life. Thank you for everything._ _

__All my love,_ _

__Castiel_ _

Dean’s fingers feel numb as he returns the paper under the magnet. So, that’s that, he thinks. There’s a hot, painful lump in his throat, and though he’s pretty sure he should be crying, nothing comes. He just feels hollowed out. Gutted.

The apartment has never seemed so quiet.

Though it’s still daylight, he crawls under sheets that still smell of Castiel and goes to sleep.

********* **

****ONE MONTH LATER** **

Standing with his back to the stockade, Dean stares across the bustling Moondoor Market, watching as Charlie stops beside a stall where a cute girl with elf ears is selling enchantments. The dress he made for her looks perfect, but he can hardly manage to appreciate his work. 

His own chainmail is starting to irritate him at the neck, where it’s pressing cool against his skin through a little hole in the collar of his undershirt. He wants to go home and mope.

It’s coming up on noon on the first day of the Fall Jubilee--the royal wedding isn’t even happening until tomorrow--and he knows that if he tries to duck out now he’ll be getting an irritated call from Charlie within the hour. As it stands, he’s pretty sure someone is going to be on his back for not properly participating any moment now. With a sigh, he looks around and heads toward the guard stationed by the stocks.

“Well met, Sir Dean,” the guard says, bowing as he approaches.

The guard is a guy named Garth who works at the animal shelter in town, and if it’s possible, he’s even more into the LARP scene than Charlie.

“Uh, verily,” Dean says, not entirely sure that he’s using the right word. He’s too tired for this. Garth just blinks at him. “Wouldst thou, um...” He sighs and leans a little closer, dropping his voice and his character. “Can I take over the stock guard gig for a bit?”

“This position is not worthy of a Knight!” Garth exclaims, scandalized, and Dean groans.

“C’mon, man, I just need to--”

Garth widens his eyes and jerks his chin to the left, and Dean turns to see Charlie approaching with a concerned look on her face. Garth bows lower than before.

“Your Highness,” he says.

“Well met, Fitzgerald,” Charlie replies, and turns back to Dean. “Sir Dean, please accompany me to my chambers.”

If Dean knows anything about Charlie’s use of a pointed eyebrow-arch, it’s not a request. Wearily, he trudges after her into the royal tent. She’s got her arms crossed when he steps inside.

“You’re bailing.”

“I’m not--”

“I can already tell. You keep glancing toward the parking lot.”

Dean rubs at the back of his neck.

“I don’t __want__ to leave,” he says.

“But?”

He sighs.

“But I can’t focus,” he admits. “You know I’ve been looking forward to this, it’s just...”

“Cas,” Charlie says.

Dean doesn’t really need to answer. It’s been a month--longer now since Cas left than Dean actually knew the guy--but he still feels his absence at every turn. He sinks down onto the plush velvet footstool by the tent door.

“It’s stupid, but... dammit he’s… I know it was only a couple of weeks, but I-- he was it for me, Charlie.”

“It’s not stupid,” she says.

“Feels pretty goddamn stupid.”

He knows he sounds whiny, like a petulant little kid, but he can’t help himself. He feels like an idiot for falling for the guy in the first place. Charlie prods him with her sword.

“Have you looked him up?”

“What?” “Just... maybe if you know how his life turned out, it might help give you some closure.” 

He waves her off.

“There’s no record of him after ‘48, remember? He just up and--” Dean blinks as he feels all the blood rush to his head. “Oh, crap.” 

“What?”

“I’m an idiot, Charlie.”

“Well, yeah, sometimes, but so’s everyone. What did you just work out?”

“That article... I thought Cas had run off with some soldier from his crew, but Charlie, it was __me__.” 

Charlie squints.

“I thought you met him in 1945.”

“I did, but time ran at a different speed there. Every second here is a minute there. Almost every time I went back, it was like months had passed even if it was only a few days for me. Shit, I need to-- do you have a pen?”

“What? No, I--”

“Okay, I guess just try to keep up. The first time I met him was September 21st, 1945. Two weeks passed. Saw him again. Close to a year passed. Time after that… that was the same day, but the next one was seven months. Then ten months. Then a couple of days. What year are you getting?”

Charlie drops her sword and stares at him.

“1948. He never went back,” she says, and Dean stares right back, shaking his head as his face splits into a grin.

“ _ _He never went back__. He’s still here. Or, y’know. Not here, but __now__. You know what I mean.”

“So where did he go?”

That question is like cold water, and Dean tries to shake it off.

“I don’t know. I just… that note he left never made any sense to me.”

“You never told me what it said…”

“Something about how he ‘understands now’ that asking me to be with him was unfair or something. Like, he thought I was just offering myself to him because he had no place else to go. But that… I told him I wanted to be with him. Even when I went back the last time before he came here, I was-- shit. __Shit.__ ”

“What did you do?”

He closes his eyes, squeezing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

“You went to break things off,” Charlie guesses, her tone laced with pity. “Oh, Dean.”

“I know, okay? I’m a moron. But I told him... I told him I wouldn’t want to sacrifice my whole life here to stay there. I basically told him he wasn’t enough. I didn’t mean it like that, but... fuck, that’s what he heard. __I understand, now__. That’s what his note said. __I understand__. Like he saw my life here and thought he was... I don’t know, cramping my style or something.”

Dean’s chest is aching, his throat closing up. Charlie’s cool hands on his cheeks bring him back.

“Breathe, Dean,” she tells him.

“Where did he go?” Dean asks, hating how much his voice is shaking as Charlie pulls him into a hug. “If he never went back, where the hell did he go?”

Charlie pats the back of his head.

“We’ll figure it out,” she tells him, then pulls back a little to catch his eye. “Can you give me five minutes?”

“For what?”

“I need to find my Royal understudy.”

____

Dean tries not to meet Charlie’s eye as he ushers her into his apartment. It’s a mess. He knows it’s a mess. It’s just that keeping things tidy has been too daunting a task these past few weeks, and given that he rarely entertains guests it just hasn’t been worth the effort to force himself.

Thankfully, Charlie doesn’t comment on the state of the living room--just waits patiently while Dean grabs his comforter and a discarded hoodie from the couch and tosses it onto his weeks-untouched bed before she takes her usual seat.

“So,” she says, curling her socked feet up onto the cushion and looking at Dean as he slumps down at the opposite end. “Any ideas?”

Dean shakes his head.

“Well, did he have any money?”

“Just the fifty I’d given him to get groceries.” 

“Well, he can’t have gone too far with that.”

“Maybe we should check homeless shelters?” Dean suggests. 

Nodding, Charlie digs her phone from her pocket and starts searching, and Dean wracks his brain for something. Anything that might tell him where Castiel could have gone.

“I think there’s a shelter down on Oak street…” Charlie says as she types. “Maybe Pine? Sycamore? Willow? It’s definitely a tree name.”

Dean almost upends the coffee table he leaps up so fast.

“Sycamore,” he repeats when Charlie stares up at him, startled. “Charlie, what if he went to Hannah’s? She’s the only other person he knows.”

Charlie is already nodding, and she quickly searches something on her phone before nodding even more, turning the screen to show him.

“Bus to Sycamore doesn’t even cost twenty dollars.”

Dean practically dives for his keys. Charlie, through some sneaky maneuver that she probably learned from the Moondoor Magician’s Guild, somehow manages to slip them out of his hand and put them in her pocket in one dizzyingly fast movement.

“What--”

“Dude, you’re not driving up there right now.”

“Why the hell not?”

Lifting her brow, Charlie grabs him by the collar and drags him to the bathroom. She positions him in front of the mirror and prods at his cheek.

“Are those the eyebags of someone who should be operating a vehicle?”

With a groan, Dean rolls his eyes and bats her hand away.

“I’m fine.”

“You can sing that tune all you want, Dean, but I’m pretty sure you haven’t slept right all month.”

“It’s barely an hour and a half.”

Charlie’s eyes narrow.

“Do I need to remind you how my parents were killed?”

That stops Dean in his tracks. It’s not often that Charlie brings that up, and the fact that he’s done something that forced her to do it makes him feel guilty as hell.

“Alright,” he sighs. “You’re right. I’ll wait until morning.”

“That’s all I ask. And hey, bonus--you won’t look like crap by then.”

“Are you saying I look like crap now?”

Charlie just smiles at him as she heads back to the living room, phone in hand. 

____

The drive to Sycamore takes a few hours--just long enough for Dean to start worrying. There’s always a chance that he’s wrong. Maybe Castiel won’t be there. Maybe he __did__ try to return to his own time by breaking the spell, but it didn’t work. Maybe he doesn’t actually want to see Dean.

No, he tells himself firmly. That first letter Castiel wrote is proof enough that he wanted to be with Dean. The way Castiel looked at him when they kissed, when they slept together the night before he left. There’s no way that Castiel left because he didn’t want to stay. 

He left because Dean made him think he had to.

Hannah’s house looks a little tidier this time. The overgrown front yard has been wrangled into something more closely resembling a garden, and the bird bath is filled with water. A blue jay is splashing around in it as Dean approaches.

When he knocks on the door, flakes of blue paint cling to his knuckles.

“I’ll get it!”

The voice is muffled from inside the house, but it’s unmistakably Castiel. The sound has Dean’s heart pounding before the door has even opened. When it finally swings wide a few seconds later, Castiel is standing there barefoot in jeans and a t-shirt, staring at Dean like he’s seen a ghost.

____

Staring out at Dean on the front step of Hannah’s house, it occurs to Castiel that this is the first time they’ve been apart for an equal amount of time. One month.

Somehow, Dean’s eyes upon him take his breath away even more than the last time.

“I thought you went back,” Dean tells him, and the words break the spell.

Castiel steps outside and pulls him close. He’s warm and solid and perfect in Castiel’s arms, and his heart aches with how much he’s missed him. 

“I thought you went back,” Dean repeats, and he sounds angry. Hurt, as he pulls back to meet Castiel’s eyes, gripping his shoulders in both hands. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I’m sorry,” Castiel tells him. “You kept telling me we’d find a way to send me back. I thought it was what you wanted.”

“I just wanted you to be able to go home.”

“There was nothing there for me,” Castiel says. “You know that. I __told__ you that. I had nobody.”

For a long moment, Dean looks at him, studies him. His tongue darts out over his lower lip.

“Alright, cards on the table here,” he says, and takes an unsteady breath. “I’m pretty sure I started falling for you as soon as I read the story about you in Sugarman’s autobiography. I was up all night, just waiting for another sentence about you. Now that I’m saying that out loud, it sounds kinda messed up, but… man. I think I started loving you then. I don’t even know what to call how I feel about you now. I just know I want you with me. I want to see you frowning at me before you’ve had coffee. I want to find you on the fire escape pretending not to smoke. I want to hear you laughing at me for being a jackass.”

He smiles, hopeful and desperate as he raises a hand to Castiel’s cheek.

“I want to kiss you until it stops being novel,” he says with a shaky grin, “and then I want to kiss you again.”

Cas laughs, dizzy with love.

“So, will you come home? I mean, it’s technically your apartment, too.” 

As he pulls Dean close, kissing him soundly on the front step, Castiel’s heart pounds hard as he thinks to himself; __**this** is worthy of the color red.__

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the first (and dare I say annual) [Dean/Cas Pinefest](http://deancaspinefest.tumblr.com)! Please visit the challenge collection here on Ao3 to see all the wonderful stories and artworks created.
> 
> As this fic references real world events (in particular the Warsaw Airlift) I decided to basically stick an extra plane into the fleet rather than overwrite the real people who risked their lives. Also, the small amount of information on czarwonica and zagavory is as accurate as I could manage, but neither have a whole lot of information available online, so I apologize if there's any inaccuracies there.
> 
> If you'd like to see what B-17 flight jacket looks like, or a couple of examples of the nose-art that US Army Air Force flight crews would decorate their planes with, there's some pictures I drew inspiration from [here](http://imogenbynight.tumblr.com/post/157177638206/wwii-flight-jackets-plane-nose-art).
> 
> Last off, I realized on my final edit that I never got around to including a scene I'd planned for--namely, Sam and Eileen meeting Cas. This is a terrible oversight, and one I intend on making up for with an epilogue.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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